Well, I don't have that problem, at all. I have noticed that if you are deep into a long game and you load a save that you made for that point, that it takes longer than a save point that you made early game.

NOW, with that said, HOW ABOUT YOU LIST YOUR SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS!? That may give some insight as to why it's taking a couple of minutes for you and/or crashing. I have also seen some posts by devs on here that they are working on solving a memory usage problem for systems that have less than 2 Gigabytes of RAM.

1) I have a fairly decent system.

2) I have 2 Gigs of RAM.

I can say have never encountered a problem or long load times( I've played large galaxy with 7 opponents, now playing gigantic with 9), although I realize that you may not be alone and that others have encountered the performance issue of a long load time and/or crash on loading as you have.

Again, I have heard they are trying to solve a memory problem and hopefully it will be solved for 1.2, but that may not come out for a while. Take a look at the sticky post at the VERY TOP of the forum titled "*Unofficial* Test Build to address 1.1 Memory/Save Game/Crash issues".

And again, list you System Specs.. similar to the following example. Doesn't have to be as detailed, but pleeeease, when asking a question such as the one you are asking(performance related question) list them!!


System Specs:

Intel P4 3.4C(C = Northwood Core) on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe(Intel 875P + ICH5R Chipset), Zalman 7000a-Cu HS/Fan, Enermax RG651P-VE 550W PSU, 2 GB Mushkin eXtreme Performance(2-2-2) Dual Channel PC3200 RAM, Samsung 214T MultiSync 21" Digital LCD Monitor, Sapphire Radeon X800 XT PE Videocard with v6.3 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0c, Creative Audigy2 Platinum Soundcard with v2.08.0002 OpenAL Beta Driver, Western Digital 250 GB w/8 MB Cache 7200 RPM Parallel ATA HDD, WinXP Pro SP2, Comcast Cable Internet Connection, Nortons Anti-Virus and Personal Firewall 2006

Regards

EDIT: I see Moosetek beat me to it.... I took my time making my post. Then the forum did not accept it the first time I tried to submit either.

I agree that the load times seem to take significantly longer the deeper you are into a game. However, I've also noticed the time to load has dramatically increased now with v1.1 from v1.0x.

I time my loads by the loading song, not actual time since my clock only displays minutes... Before with v1.0x, every game, no matter what size map, would load a few seconds after the lady doing the opera impression starts. Now with v1.1, the song seems to play all the way through then start over and get about half way through.

In other words, enough time for me to get up, go to the bathroom, wash hands, and then readjust computer chair, get comfortable, and about 10 seconds later, the game will load.

What I find funny is that whenever you load a game, the report screen has the same message as when you started a new game.

Specs:
Intel P4 3.0C on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe(Intel 875P + ICH5R Chipset), Coolmax Ultra 6 Heat sink w/ 11 case fans, 2 GB Dual Channel PC3400 RAM, Sapphire Radeon X800 XT Pro PE Videocard (Good luck finding one of those video cards! Although, it's only slightly better than the regular Sap. X800 XT PE), DirectX 9.0c, Creative Audigy2 Platinum ZS Soundcard, WinXP SP2, Comcast digital cable high speed Internet (Fiberoptics... oooohh).

Tried to be as thorough as the 2nd guy above me, but his may have been a little over-kill. Heck, my list may be over-kill. Who cares what type of fan one uses so long as one has at least 3 or 4 (In my opinion), and who cares about internet connection.