Not sure if it's still the case, but using quicksave was suspected of leading to save corruption.
Also, my impression is once you start getting corrupt saves, it doesn't get better.

Quicksave is turned off as it was suggested for the Co8 mod install. I use a series of save games that I save after each battle or plot conversation, I had to go 3 back to undo the last corruption that spawned twice after looting multiple rooms of dead badies in the earth node. each time I had to go back to a save before I picked up anything in those rooms. I ended up leaving all the loot in hopes that would make the corruption not happen and it has not been back since.

Never made the loot/corruption connection myself, which might explain my experience..
Hope that's it and it works out for you.

what kind of experience did you have with the temple?

Love the game and have played it through several times, trying out different party or solo setups.
But have also abandoned the game a few times due to save corruption, much as I said before,
if the saves start going bad, they'd go bad repeatedly on different situations, I'd have as many as five
separate saves and then none of them would work. Or I'd have to go to an hour old working save,
and then when the saves would go bad again I'd just not have the energy to again go an hour or more backwards.

I usually keep a couple of rotating saves from a village, and another rotating set of saves from the dungeon.
So I'd lose only a few minutes at best if the dungeon set has a working save, or a few hours to a whole day
if need to go back to an older village save.

Using the same save system on most RPG's. They don't all crash, but many have "should have done this thing earlier, now you're screwed" situations.

I did not have any more corrupt files today but I'm quite paranoid and have started to add saves outside of my save rotation for key locations. I am currently almost finished with dungeon level 2, I allied with the air guy because he was less rude to me and I outright killed the water priest. There was a huge room of greater temple bugbears and all I have left of the area is the fire node. Party is on average level 9 with the newcomer being level 7, this game makes it really easy to catch a character up on levels as they gain a larger portion of the experience.

Fire Node and Fire Temple are extremely buggy... screen freeze is common... be aware in advance.

This may appear a bit disjointed but here's some progress and notes from my recent playtime.

1) I sided with the Air temple priest and killed the other 3, When I had the priest take me to the leader I sided with him as an evil party might do and the game ended with evil taking over the land. So... Reload to before I talked to him and continued on.

2) I am now down on I believe the fourth level of the temple.

3) Crafting Items are really powerful, I am unsure what makes new bonuses available to enchant. I crafted a Longsword +3 with both Flaming and Shock my rogue is destroying.

4) Just realized I can read notes/books by dragging them to the green "use item" button in my inventory so I still need to go back and read everything I have collected up to this point.

5) On the base level of the Temple, the Golden skull opened a section in front of the throne so I need to explore what that area is.

6) Most of the Party is in the 9/10 range with the new addition Amelia La Mort almost caught up she is a fighter/Cleric.

Still having fun also playing Oblivion for the first time so that's taking some of my game time, limited as it is.

Iirc, Gamefaqs hosts a text file for ToEE that discusses forging bonuses and requirements.

Thanks I will look that up.

Doesn't all fighter characters including the Paladin have option of choosing Weapon Specialization feat after the character reaches 5 level. Pre-Generated paladin character (Alhandra) appears to be locked out of the option for this feat.