Just as a note to the people working on that bug...
I noticed the more I and the computer defeated them, the less crashes I got. I then went and made a new game, choose random factions (which had a general I could reset) and then defeated many Independents on the first game-turn (by character_reseting then auto_winning attacker etc.). I did not kill them all, just about 50% of them, all over the map. I noticed this produced far less crashes right from the get go.
I am not sure how this will help, but it might spark someone's brain...heh!