Thought i'd better make a post. As I was looking to play this again - after trying the Russian downloads and getting CTD's ahoy - I tried this. I've got two games upto 75 turns+ now.
I had one lot of crashes during City sieges (not Dwarf city sieges strangely) - which I solved by lowering my graphics options a little (AA and AntiIsotrope - no shadows). since then i've had 2 - just 2 "random crashes" which I solved by either reloading or butchering the odd rebel force - neither has stopped my main two games of Dwarves and Nordland so far.
I recommend this work by Gigantus 100% if you want to play CoW! Now I might just start to update some of my guides a little - no doubt with my luck with patch 1.5 about to deploy!
Again, great work Gigantus and anyone who has helped him.