Does it always crash on load, or does it work after you restart the game in a new session or after rebooting the machine and restarting?
I've found the game always crashes on a reload in the same session. But if I save a turn, do somethig silly like click on the wrong thing and send my sov into battle by himself and then exit the game to desktop, restart the game, and load the autosave or the saves I've made, loading the save then works.