There is a program called HWmonitor (
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php). You can run that and leave it running while you play. Later, alt+tab or exit the game and you can see what the highest reported temp of your card was. If the temp shows the same after that for 'current, high, and low', then it most likely isn't working right for you.
Do you have any other games that crash like sh3 does?
On Nvidia's site, I think the latest driver that should work with that card is 175.19. Wouldn't hurt to try it
If it does, just roll back to what you got now.