I just blame windows.
I use the mod launcher to launch TDM, SEIV loads just fine.
The problem is when I click "resume game" or "load game" and select the most recently loaded game. That is when it freezes. As I was saying I use the auto-save every turn, if I save it manually I cannot reload that game, but I can reload the auto-save. If I don't save manualy I usualy cannot load the last auto-save, but the previous auto-save will load.
My first though was memory, I have 128megs, but windows alone uses about 85, and my paging file is fubar so I have no virtual memory. I have never had it shut down in the middle of a game though. I'll have to check tonight to see how much memory I am using with SEIV running. Maybe I'll try shuting off the mod launcher after I use it to open SEIV, it only uses about 3.5 megs but maybe it's interfering with the saves somehow.
thanks for the thoughts.