I simply can not start the quest, or interact in any way with dead sea at all. It looks like he starts rushing forward to talk and the game crashes. Every single time. I only know he's called Dead Sea because I looked it up on the wiki. Any pointers here folks? I'm about ready to give up and play something else.

Actually it just seems to constantly crash regardless of what i do in "that area". That area being anywhere near camp Nelson to Forlorn hope. Anything I do will make it crash. Whether it be trying to access the camp fire, quick changing weapons, or most recently hitting start to pause. This is completely and totally unacceptable.