I have encountered this twice, once just recently. I have a fleet blockading a port. During the AI turn, next to my fleet an ally fleet initiates combat with a third country who is not my enemy, pulling me into the battle. I choose to withdraw from the combat. The game crashes and freezes my system, requiring me to manually turn off the PC.

I have properly installed the mod components and hotfix. I have properly logged onto the game from the DOS window. I have Windows XP.

I do not crash everytime an ally pulls me into a combat and I withdraw. And I cannot say it happened exclusively when I was blockading. I cannot recall the exact situation the first time it happened, as it was several weeks ago.