Version.

[Sailor Steve]

There are a lot of things that can cause crashes. I used to get them after sinking a ship. Turned out it was the onboard sound. A real sound card fixed it for me.

If the patch version was the problem it likely wouldn't load at all; just give you an error message.

You'll need to experiment to find out the cause. Or, if you're really lucky, someone will be along soon who has had the problem and knows the fix.