Crashing on return from Vacation? (with full up to M&G install)

[Sita]

I played the Contender family for two hours last night - married Carlos to a bimbo, long vacation (a week? Whatever the longest vacation is) - they had a lovely time. When I went to return home, the game crashed.
When I restarted the game they were apparently in their house again, so none of the Bon Voyage returning from home bits had happened - now every time i try to load the family, the game crashes - gets to 4 blue squares and then hangs.
Short of delete the family and play somewhere else, any suggestions? This is very frustrating.
I do have hacks and downloads but I check regularly, ran HCDU a couple of days ago - and as far as I know I have no hacks that have anything to do with BV as I rarely actually play the BV features.

[ancienthighway]

Have you been patching your game?

[caffeinated.joy]

Also, even thought HCDU detected no conflicts, it would be worth it to try removing your mods and seeing if that stops the crashing.

Also moving this to the help section.

[Sita]

Yes, I was finally able to get the family back after removing every bit of custom content from the game. But even then they wouldn't load. So I moved them out, which I COULD do even though they hadn't properly come back from their hols - so they didn't get the bonuses for after a holiday. After a couple of attempts I got them to loac, after moving them into a completely different house. Of course they look different now, and having put all my hair and clothes CC in the game still works... but I would like to know WHY this happens.
The only patching I do, AH, is that when I reinstall the game, which I seem to do every few months, I patch each EP as I go.
I'm hoping this isn't a general glitchiness but I am not very hopeful. I don't have many hacks, but I like the ones I have My downloads folder is not huge, about 1.5Gigs.
Sigh. This is why I left Sims 1 for Sims 2, and Sims 2 for Sims 3, in the hope of a game that would run better.... no such animal with EA I think.