ETAA: Okay, solved. Sort of. It was indeed the debug compile of Arena.exe causing it. Tested by switching to a clean Arena.exe and going back and talking to the NPC's that were crashing earlier.
Dunno what's up with that. Wait, just noticed it crashed at the same point as the other crash I've been having. Maybe it really is a problem with this particular save game?
C:\Documents and Settings\Maximillion\Desktop\GearheadTree\GH Mod Current Draft\
GearHeadMod>arena
An unhandled exception occurred at $0040F7E0 :
ERangeError : Range check error
$0040F7E0 RPGKEY, line 644 of sdlgfx.pp
$00414D89 SELECTMENU, line 522 of sdlmenus.pp
$00448F83 IMPROVESKILLS, line 1263 of pcaction.pp
$0044791A DOTRAINING, line 1711 of pcaction.pp
$0044437F FHQ_THISLANCEMATEWASSELECTED, line 266 of pcaction.pp
$00444659 FIELDHQ, line 342 of pcaction.pp
$00449201 PCFIELDHQ, line 1742 of pcaction.pp
$0044D892 RLPLAYERINPUT, line 3253 of pcaction.pp
$0044DB42 GETPLAYERINPUT, line 3331 of pcaction.pp
$004378B5 GETMEKINPUT, line 88 of arenaplay.pp
$00437A36 CHECKMEKS, line 142 of arenaplay.pp
$00437CB2 COMBATMAIN, line 240 of arenaplay.pp
$0043973F SCENEPLAYER, line 880 of arenaplay.pp
$004183F3 NAVIGATOR, line 96 of navigate.pp
$004185D8 RESTORECAMPAIGN, line 173 of navigate.pp
$004017EC main, line 79 of arena.pas
C:\Documents and Settings\Maximillion\Desktop\GearheadTree\GH Mod Current Draft\
GearHeadMod>
ETA:
Couldn't get it to repeat this one. I'm playing with the debugging compile of Arena.exe, incidently. Can't imagine why that might be causing wide-spread havoc, but I suppose I should try without it.
