Had Boone as a companion initially, for the first 45 hours of play. Game crashed around 5-6 times in that time, so didnt mind too much.

Got Boone killed, so I recruited Veronica. Had around 5-6 addidional crashes in 5 hours since recruiting her. Anyone else having issues with Veronica as companion?

Yeah, I tried recruiting Veronica as my first companion (Boone and I didn't see eye to eye...lol) and I started on my journey to the strip. about 2 minutes down the road I told her to go away, the game was sooo slowed down I thought it would crash. I should've just called it quits there before I messed up my system. I was able to play my first playthrough without any game ending bugs, just ignored companions altogether after my experience with Veronica.