I bought fallout new vegas on steam as a bundle pack, including all the addons. Being a huge fan of the fallout serise I was very excited to get playing. Into the game: I exited the medics office and went over to the saloon, as thats what the doc suggested to do. I talked to Sunny in the saloon and she takes me out back for some shooting lessons. I take out the bottles with no problem. We move on, to clear out the well. Once we get there I see the geckos, line them up with the iron sights, and BOOM!.... As soon as I pull the trigger the screen goes blurry and the game crashes. Its a solid crash, with no recovery. I have to do a full pc restart.

I tested this out 4 times, Once I went around the right side of the rock insted of the left... crashed when I shot. then I tried shooting in VATS.... crash again. I even tried with a different gun without using the iron sights... again it crashed. It seems to have to do with that creature getting shot? I can shoot everything in the town without issue, but not the geckos.

I've never had a problem with steam games in the past.
I'm not sure how to go about fixing it. Any advice?