I should prob give u some more info just in case someone has already had a similar problem and might recognise it:

I've deleted a lot of units
I've renamed some units
I've added some units

In game the map appears, I can see peasants in the armies (Peasants are the royal at the moment, and I only have one other type of unit on the map to start with and they work fine)

I can see my recruiting options, all the units appear so do their descriptions names etc.

Could it be that when one of the units is built, the game crashes, and this unit is always built in the first turn?

In the meantime, I'll remove the units one by one to see if I can find a faulty unit.