I just entered the Vale of Shadows, cleared out the first crypt, and then every time I exit the crypt and start walking away (back toward the entrance to the Vale), the game instantly crashes. Any knowledge of why this happens and how to fix it?

What version and do you have any mods?

Just the GOG version, comes with HOW, not EE. No mods.

Ok, so it's not a mod problem. That makes it more difficult to home in on the cause. If could be a corrupt bif file. Try quitting the game and deleting everything in

..\Icewind Dale\cache\data\

The GOG classic version is fully patched so other than that I would have to asume that it's a corrupt saved game. Do you have an earlier save?

Clearing out the cache didn't do the trick. I have a quick-save and an auto-save in addition to the regular one, but they're all so close together it doesn't much matter. Loading any of the three and it's the same result: once I'm back in the outdoor part of the Vale, the game lasts about ten seconds then it crashes.

I'm thinking I'll start the story from the beginning and see if the Vale acts any differently from there. It's not ideal, but at least I was only a couple of hours into the game...

It happened again, this time immediately when I entered the Vale. Should I uninstall/reinstall the game, maybe?

EDIT: Did so, that seemed to work, looks like the problem is solved. Wish I'd thought of reinstalling *before* replaying the first few hours of the game, but it all worked out.