Check the number of files in the saved game folder (in '
..\Divine Divinity\Run\savegames'). Missing files might cause the game to crash when trying to load. A new game should have 22 files, after going to either Verdistis or the Dark Forest it should have 27 and after going to both it should have 32.
If you are short any files, compare the newer save to the old one, to determine which are missing. Depending on the file, they may or may not be replaceable, which could cause problems ranging from cosmetic to severe.
You could try deleting all of the files in the '
..\Divine Divinity\Run\Dynamic' folder (though they may have already been deleted once if you have the latest game version and reset the configuration files after the game crashed).
This folder is used as a cache for the game. Files are created / copied there from the save game folder when you load, and written / copied from that folder when you save a game. The files will be re-created as required the next time you start Divinity. If there was a corrupt file in that folder, deleting the files should fix the problem.
Since your older save works, this is probably not the problem (though there could be a corrupt file specific to the Dark Forest, etc that the older save isn't trying to access).
Are you relying exclusively on quicksaves? If you are not going to use named saves at all, you may want to increase the number of quicksaves that the game uses. This requires either the
patch be installed, or an already updated re-release game version (ie showing 1.0034A in the bottom right corner of the main menu).
In the '
Divine Divinity' folder, open the '
config.lcl' file in a text editor (such as Notepad) and add the line "[color:"orange"]MaxQuickSaveAmount #[/color]", where '#' is the maximum number of quicksaves you want (max 99). If you add this at the end of the file, hit the Enter key before saving. The game expects the last line to be blank, so doesn't recognize the change if you just add it there and save.
