Sorry it didn't work for you but thats what I did, I slept in the thieves guild but I don't suppose that makes any difference. The new 1.6 beta patch seems to make the game more stable as well so mabey try that? edit: Okay I've just loaded up a save of my very first character, a char that was previously unusable, (literally could'nt leave the room I was in, lol) and it worked. I fast travelled to winterhold and ran around through loading screens and all over. I havent done my above sugestion on this char yet so it could only be the 1.6 beta patch that made it work. Having said that, you say that when your game crashes you get a windows message saying "skyrim has stopped working", I didn't get any message at all, it just dropped back to desktop so maby it's a different issue. Also, in the intreasts of fault finding, try setting all your graphics settings as low as you possibly can, just to see if it's over taxing your system. I hope you get it sorted, I know how annoying it is, I feel your pain.