I literally cannot even get past the opening scene, it's crashed three times already, and for some reason the opening load screen to start a new character takes five minutes.

Clear your cache, make sure you have the latest system update, and then reinstall. If that doesn't fix it, I don't know what will.

Pc or console?

Probably PC

Day one patch is today, should fix the first issues.

If not => drivers up to date?

what are your specs?

Actualy it was a bit Crash happy on the Xbox, which was why they went ahead and sent out the Day one patch a few days early.

that said, they have lots of other bugs that were not cleared up

Do i hear hard sound of train crash?