Thanks very much for the earlier tips!

About 40 or 50 hours into a game, the game started crashing to desktop when I save or if there is an autosave.

I know of a workaround: after loading the game, I go to third person, click my character, and type 'kill.' Getting killed normally in game works as well but the console way is just faster.

When the game loads, I can save again -- for a while.

Is there a way to actually repair the Save function?