I'm running the GOG install without any mods. I've never had any problems up to this point in the game. I'm in Chapter 4, and having just completed the Bandit Camp, I decided to backtrack to Ulcaster to level up. Inside the dungeon, I just wiped out the big Dread Wolf room and killed the Vampiric Wolf that's in the room with the Pile of Corpses and Fireball trap. I saved immediately after killing the Vampiric Wolf and now one of two things happens: either the program just freezes (so I have to alt-tab and close it with the process manager) or I get: "An Assertion failed in D:\Dev\Baldur\CPathSearch.cpp at line number 724". This happens every time I load the game too, usually about 1-2 seconds after the load. If I manage to get into one of the menus (like inventory or character sheet), the error won't appear until after I return to the play screen.

I have noticed that if I load a different save first and then switch back to my save in Ulcaster, it will delay the freeze/error pop-up for an indeterminate amount of time. The longest I've delayed was maybe a minute. Worse comes to worse, I have a save that is about 45 minutes back, but I'd like to not have to replay that much :/

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One suggestion is to iImprove the pathfinding AI by editting BALDUR.INI

http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=363963&forum=11

If that doesn't work you could try emptying the games /CACHE folder.

There is also a suggestion in this thread (post by chocutt) that this error may be related to a corrupted save game

http://forums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html?topic=390110&forum=11&sp=60

Did you install into the default "program files" folder?

I don't know if this will help but if you installed it there it may be worth a try to reinstall in some other directory, because Windows tends to mess things up when you install games into the program files folder.

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It does appear to be a corrupt save. From what I've read, I must have saved during the middle of a script execution. I tried clearing out the CACHE and TEMP folders, even a full on re-install after deleting everything but my SAVE directory. Adjusting the Pathfinding AI only accelerated the error pop-up.