today I played all map sizes to try to determine or at least eliminate possible areas that are causing crashes

tiny played the longest, but had very poor starting pos played about 380 turns

small was better start, but very limited resources played about 300 turns

medium ok start, also restricted resources played about 280 turns

large good start location , but other factions started a bit near ie within 100 tiles should have been spread out  over the entire continent, plenty of resources played about 250 turns

set of dumps,saves errs zips * dxdiags for tests

all tests were played with the same 5 factions ,player with a custom hunter sov, single continent

harpo