before I start, I wanted to say that I have looked up various solutions on how to fix this and I couldn't find one that looked like my case
so I got the CtD in whiterun problem this morning and I have found a way to fix half of the problem.
what do I mean by that?
the only fix that worked for me right now is cleaning up my save using this program.
I loaded a save outside of whiterun, created a dump file, used the program to fix the dump file and loaded it.
I opened the door and it worked! I was happily running around whiterun!
to make sure everything worked fine, I saved the game, and loaded it, worked just fine, I quick saved, quick loaded the game, worked just fine.
so then I exited the game and loaded it again to test it one last time.... nope. CtD. f*** you.
so to summarize:
If I clean a save outside of whiterun, I can go in but I can't load a save INSIDE of whiterun (even when the save was created while playing the cleaned save)
I've tried uninstalling mods and playing around with the load order to no avail, and I can't find anybody with the same issue (it's either f*** you all the way or love you, not f*** half of you)
anybody got any ideas on how to fix this?