Hopefully I'll get time tonight and over the weekend to try a couple more ideas that people have put forth.
I have tried monitoring RAM and CPU, and watching the game's processes in particular, but at the moment the game starts to lock up the k/b becomes unresponsive. So alt-f4, alt-tab, crtl-alt-del ... nothing works.
Monitoring software running on a second monitor shows that the game is running well within the computers capabilities with temp, CPU use, RAM usage, RAM errors etc etc all staying stable, no obvious memory leaks or runaway process.
I'd screenshot it but... that's right, k/b non responsive. I guess I could take screen shots every few seconds while playing and then pick the one closest to the crash... but honestly it doesn't look like that is where the issue is.
I'll provide the game version when I get home.
