Bobsidian

Note: I have the latest patch and am running XP with hardware far beyond this game's needs. I've been playing KoTORII for a couple days now and am on the Telos Citadel Station. I Alt+Tab a lot to use AIM and Firefox while playing. When I do this and KoTOR is minimized my computer runs very slowly and has frozen on me twice such that I had to do a hard reset. I always save my game before Alt+Tabing so I don't lose my progress in case my computer does indeed freeze. The first time my computer froze, forcing me to do a hard reset, I just loaded up the game and had no problems. Now, however, there is an issue. I can load up my saved game without difficulty, but my party members are missing. Also, if I try to enter the Cantina the game goes to main start up screen (with the dude in the black with the funny mask). If I try to use rapid transit or go to a new area the game crashes and the "An Error Has Occurred" box pops up. Is there any way to fix this problem or will I have to start a new game? Have others had this problem?