So, I've been playing the game now for 44 hours without issue. I decided to start poking around a bit more before I headed to Vegas.
I decided to investigate an undiscovered spot near Helious One. After 4 crashes from different saves, I've determined that whenever I try to approach this cave, the game crashes.
The save loads fine. I can go other places just wonderfully. However, as soon as I get near this cave, crash.
I'm not running any mods at all.

System:
Windows 7
i5 760 @2.8GHz
1 GB Geforce 460GTX
4 GB Ram
onboard Realtek sound

as a test I went out and discovered a few more locations which went fine with several more being added until I approached bitter springs (I'd discovered the rec area, not the town) and when I was approaching it crashed again.

Talk about utter failure Obsidian. I sent a support request on this the same day I wrote this and they said they'd reply in 12 hours.. we're a week later.