I thought the crashing I was experiencing was related to the rain spell being used on the burning house near the church, as that was when I first experienced crashing every time I tried to approach the area.

However, looking back "Roderick" has not been the same for awhile now, and the crashes are continuing a few minutes into gameplay once the battles get going even when I avoid the burning house area.

It first started when "Roderick" got electrocuted in one of the other houses near the church and began glowing bright green as if radioactive. I reloaded, but since then I cannot apply one of his traits for level up, and when in his inventory, none of the pop-up-windows show up with stats for items 50% of the time either.
I have briefly seen him glow green before crashing even after the reloads from before the lightning strike once also since it happened.