Er what I mean is I personally save my game during the pre-battle screen, in case I lose and need to fight the battle again. In this particular case, I also saved at the pre-battle screen but this one was unique in several ways:
  • It was during the AI turn
  • It was a naval battle
  • It was the Eleutheroi's turn
I think the important bit is that it was during the AI's turn, and so when I loaded it again the background script was off. This may well be why the game crashes - but, like I say, I was simply fortunate in that I had an Autosave save the game right at the end of the previous turn, so I could just load the game at the autosave and go straight through without stopping.

So I believe that there is a bug if you load a game halfway through the AI's turn, although I may be wrong (for instance, it might be a Eleutheroi- or navy-only thing).