Committing too many murders while trying to get gold back from Smithing trainers.

So far. DEATH.

Second cause: check dialog trees and their outcomes.

I never reload unless I feel I've been too horribly sidetracked from what I had actually set out to do. To prevent cluttering my journal. Because the lack of proper quest descriptions makes it nearly impossible for me to pick up quests a while after I ran into them.

Other than that I don't reload. I've had no CTD's, no lockups, no sudden performance drops. Sure I've had some quests break causing me to have to back a few saves, but those reloads have been very rare. Also, I do not reload when a companion dies or gets stuck. I rarely use companions anyhow but if I do then I accept the fact that they may not come back from a quest.

Glitches and framerate drops.

I *tell* myself that each playthrough is going to be Dead-is-Dead. However, something will inevitably happen in game related to a character's death that will make me think that death wasn't "fair", or was related to a bit of lag, or an unresponsive keyboard, or a bug with the architecture, or me forgetting something that my character surely wouldn't.

So character death is my biggest cause for reloads - as long as I can justify that I was somehow robbed.

If a named NPC dies and I know about it, I'll run through a section again. I save often so I can usually do it easily. Also, I save immediately when a dragon appears. I don't get that many dragons in some sections of the game so I can fight that dragon a few times if I want. I've had some interesting things happen by doing that because the fights are never exactly alike.

Pretty much, like most, I reload when my follower dies, or I run out of picks, or run into a fight I'm not prepared for and It's obvious I'm gonna die. (I would have to reload in that case anyway) I have aslo reloaded, like in one case, where a dragon attacked a village and killed a couple of NPC's, one who I had just finished a quest for, and the other I was just starting to do a quest for (which automatically failed because the questgiver was dead). I felt kinda guilty, so I reloaded to just before I had entered the town.

The game freezing!

Other than followers dieing (I always take it as my fault they die, even though they run in front of my weapon) I only reload to resolved a glitch. Only had to do that 3 times.

Hadn't thought about this, but I might implement it. Saves getting a whole bunch of quests listed that I have no intention of doing.

Everytime I use Fire Breath my companion seems to get fried

With a Garrett Avatar, sure thats stealing was accidental. XD

Accidental theft.

Sounds like a joke, but I have to reload every time I accidentally click on an item on a counter top in a store or some such place, and everyone present immediately become a psycho mass murdering vigilante. Insane. I'm like "Ok ok, my bad, I was gonna put it back, I just wanted to see what it was!" If I get that far before some old woman doing her grocery shopping has cut me down with the greatsword she somehow managed to hide in her basket.

About the only thing I die from these days is falling off cliffs.

Yeah, same. That is my #1 way of dying, #2 is from riding my horse down a hill when the horse decides it wants to fly instead of keeping its stupid feet on the ground.

i have yet to encounter this. in fact i can't really tell what is and is not a radiant quest. or maybe i am mis understanding what radiant quests are supposed to work, i thought they were completely random. however all of the tiny fetch quests i have recieved i get from the same people in other play throughs so far.

Me dieing, my follower dieing, or the game freezing.

I never reload for a failed picklock. At present my character is halfway in a dungeon with one pick in her inventory, if she fails on first try....such is life.

I do reload on game glitches like a quest turn in getting borked such as mistakenly attacking or one shot kill a quest marker, haha.

lol ye outside dying this^ and buying vedors goods instead of selling goods would be my most relaod usage!

Dying or a bug. I never go back for any other reason.

When I see purple textures. I'll usually reload to before I entered the cell. And if that doesn't work I'll exit the game completely and reload the game.