It is strange that the same people seem to crash, but the point is that these same players don't drop in other games.
It's irritating to think we might have ruined this game through corrupt saves, so I would like to see us try playing on with this, with only the starting players. If people are ok to give this another go, rather than just giving it up for dead, how about we firstly try playing on with current saves (with starting players only), and then try to revert to a pre-add on player save.
Failing that, I'm demoralised enough to give up HOI2 for a while... So much time and effort for what otherwise?