You can try approaching close enough to trigger the orc landing, but not enough to enter combat, and then maybe run away for awhile so the spell effects, etc, are not being shown on screen. You wouldn't get experience that way, so if the game still crashes, that would eliminate levelling as an issue (letting one character die at least showed it wasn't the same problem levelling that some others have encountered).
BTW, if you do the tutorial cave and explore the starting beach, it is possible to get to level 2 before the orc fight, rather than during/after.
