Happened three times to me in the last 2 weeks, blue screen (Win xp) just after the game saving. Blue screen viewer points at the audio driver. But because it is almost always points at the audio driver (i had nine win crashes in the last 3 years including this three) this maybe means nothing.
I was having the same issue, but I think mine had to do with sleep vs shutdown. My computer would go to sleep instead of shutting down, then if it was shut off all the way and the sleep data was lost, every file in the save directory would be replaced with blank hex files. Cataclysm is not the only program that did this for me, claws mail kept losing it’s folder structure xml file in the same way.
I changed it so my comp never sleeps now and it seems to have fixed it. I still keep save backups just in case. If the issue comes back and this was just a red hearing, I will remember to post it here.
Are you running any antiviruses? Something like that could potentially be flagging Cataclysm with a false positive and stopping it from functioning correctly.
Is just cataclysm freezing or is the entire computer freezing up? If it’s just cataclysm then it’s probably something we can do something about (though tracking down the exact problem is a separate matter). If, on the other hand, it’s your whole computer freezing than that points to deeper rooted problems than something we can easily fix on our end.
If it is the whole computer (and that seems implied by the sleep vs. shutdown issue that you mentioned earlier affecting more than just Cataclysm) then here’s what I would do:
Run updates on your computer. You should already be doing this on a regular basis, but do it again anyways.
Do a full scan with your antivirus program (Note, running scans with multiple antiviruses can occasionally be useful, but you should never have more than one antivirus up and running at the same time. In addition to slowing down your computer they can actually make you have less protection on top of doing things like causing crashes and freezing).
Run another full scan with your antivirus program.
Plug in your windows repair usb (or make one) and run the repair tools set. It might be a good idea to back your stuff up first just in case.
At this point if you are still having issues consider how much the problem is actually something you need to fix or if you can bear it. If you feel you have to fix the problem then back everything up, wipe the computer, reinstall windows, and restore from your backup.
Ask yourself if you really need to get this fixed again.
If you are still having issues like the sleep v. shutdown one at this point, then it means you either have a hardware issue or deeper software issues. Take your computer in to a repair shop and tell them what issues you are having and what you’ve already done to fix it, then let them try to solve the issue for you.