I did a little more testing. It appears to only happen after I load a particular saved game. If I load any of the other saved games, I'm able to go to the game options screen and select any of the saved games from the list with no problem. If I load this one saved game, then go back to the game options screen, I get the lockup.
If you guys want to check out the file, I can send it to you or upload it somewhere. What's the most convenient way to get it to you?
The only theory I have right now it that I *may* have pressed a key on the keyboard (like "escape") while it was saving and it truncated the file somehow? But I don't remember doing anything differently than normal. Pretty much saved the game once I went into the Inn, talked to the loremaster looking fellow on the left side about all his topics, tried to give him the beast head, then saved again.
Thanks again!