I've just converted my mod Dwarvenhaven (see my signature) to esm format so I can create plugins for it for DLC additions and similar stuff; NOT for version control, as I'm the only editor. The esp file worked fine, but the esm doesn't like to sometimes, and I've had very mixed results with it loaded as the last esm in my load order (still above esp files). Sometimes I've run for hours without any sort of problem, sometimes I ctd before I even get the main menu loaded. So far I've typically been testing with SKSE running as well, since I know some of my scripts are a bit messy and throw errors that won't hurt but are still there to slow things down; I do know where and plan to fix them once I get this main problem figured out.

I don't know much about the difference between how Skyrim loads esm and esp files, so if someone could clarify that would help me a lot.

Beyond that, if someone could download the file (I have multiple versions for loose file and bsa format), and make sure I didn't really mess anything obvious up that would be very very nice of them

EDIT: I've tested with clean saves as well with the same results.