I've done some testing (version 0.2xxx) and the requirements on page should be fine for 1080p @high. The main problem currently is GPU RAM. At WUXGA, epic without scaling (resolution scale 100) the game eats ~13GB RAM on GPU. Lowering to medium it still eats ~11GB RAM.
Also lowering frame rate to 30 helps keep the heat under control. It's not competitive fps, so high framerate is not crucial, but gpu power usage 150 vs 300W is noticable.

Yes. I want to play, and initially it all seemed good, but load times are forever and it crashes a lot, even on low low settings :(

It's very stable on my computer. I don't recall any crashes (could be only a handfull). Try running some stability tests, because the game, in it's current state, is very heavy on resources and will squeeze every watt from your computer, unless tamed in settings. So it could be, that your computer is overherating.

Apart from that, the game needs a reasonably fast ssd (nvme). For me, the loading times are actually much shorter than comparable games. Will have to try installing it on hdd for comparison.

And I would say 8GB VRAM could be not enough.

Ok, system specs for a start.

Dell G15 5511 (I7-11800H @ 2.3 ghz, 16 gb ram. Geforce RTX 3060 Laptop w/ 6 GB RAM)

Laptop, and I think I've only ever heard the fans spin up once to cool things down. I've had no speed issues or anything. Everything runs nice and smooth. I didn't modify any settings, just installed and ran the game. Load times so far have been less than 10 seconds. It's short enough I never even really noticed the load screens. These are the settings its running at.

1920x1080, full screen
Max FPS: OFF
DLSS enabled
AA Method : TAA
Resolution Scale: Default
View Distance, Post Processing, Textures, Effects, Foliage: EPIC
Anti-Aliasing, Global Illumination, Shadows, Reflections: HIGH
Bloom 5

Can't comment on energy usage or RAM consumed. Just system specs & settings and how well its running.

Could you disable upscaling and set resolution scale to 100%?