I just bought fallout a couple of days ago, this is my first time playing. It worked just fine the first day I played it but now it just keeps crashing to my desktop a few minutes after I load my game. If anyone knows what I should do, please help me! And no, I'm not running any mods.

Saved games during combat often are corrupt and wont work soon after you load up the game.

I did save one time during combat but it was still working for a few hours. So am I just screwed? I have a level 10 character and I really don't want to give up on him.

Try running the game in windows 95 compatibility mode. Also do you only have a single save or are all your saves not working?

This has been happening to me ever since I installed the children patch. It happened once as one of my characters was leaving Junktown, forcing a reinstall, and it happened against while I was raiding the damn Cathedral. I wasn't too happy about it.
I don't know what causes it, but I'll be playing without the patch for a while. If it still happens, I'll try your suggestion Ralackk.

I tried running in windows 95 compatibility but it didn't help. I tried starting a new game but it crashed as well. Does anybody have any solutions? Fallout is a great game and I don't want something like this to ruin it for me.

Can you post your OS & graphic card?

If your running a multicore system setting the game to run on a single core may also help with stabibilty problems. If that doesn't work then system specs as well as OS and graphics card would help.