Christo, and others having crashes/freezes;
I too had these problems until I reinstalled my Microsoft c++ redistributables - its worth a shot, it totally fixed my issues. I downloaded the file from Microsoft's site, ran it and used the option to "uninstall/remove," then ran it again and did a clean install. Haven't had a freeze or crash since, and I am running max settings on a mid-tier PC (9800GT video card, 4gb ram, 2.8gHz dual core)