NV just froze (for the first time) for me and i noticed that the HDD seemed to either reboot (runs on its own circuitry in the ps3 i suppose) or enter or wake up from some sleep mode right before it happened. Whatever the case, it made a noise not unlike a good old floppy disc drive.

From what i've gathered on some of the issues in the game it sounds to me like there is something off with some pretty low level stuff in the engine. File IO to be precise.. I suppose beth/obs is aware of this... And i hope they are... Because it shouldnt be that hard to find the problem really... Unless the engine was written by monkeys on bad acid.

Edit:

Loaded up the game and went back to the same area and it crashed again, this time it made the sound after the lockup. Same sound though. Sort of like "bnorrrr".

My save file is just over 4Mb and it crashes just outside the strip. I started the game after the last patch.

GStaff; does the testers have access to botched save files for debugging? If not I would be happy to help out by sending mine.