Errors or Crashes When Loading Saves

If you start a new game, can you make a manual save and load it properly? Moving a bit from the initial character position can trigger an auto save, which might overwrite one from your current playthrough.

Are you shutting down all non-essential programs before launching the game? Things like anti-virus, firewalls, overlays from graphics tweaking or monitoring programs, as well as chat programs, have all been known to cause issues.

BitDefender has also blocked the game from being able to create files and folders which has caused similar errors, generally with no question mark or non-path slashes. In that case, including both the game executables and Larian Studios My Documents folder in BitDefender's trusted app and directory sections should fix the problem . You can do this by following this path: Advance Threat Defense > Ransomware Protection / Safe Files > Application Access.

Windows Defender has also caused issues, such as file system errors. In those cases an exception for the game can be made. To do this, you can follow the following path: Start > Settings > Updates & Security > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Virus & threat protection settings > Add or remove exclusions.

Avast and AVG have also caused various save issues by blocking the game's access to the ‘My Documents’ folder. It has been reported that it was the launcher that was the issue for Avast, and adding LariLauncher.exe to the trusted apps list fixed the problem. Another reported that AVG quarantined the launcher. This has been less of an issue since patch 7, with the change to save the profiles in the local AppData folder. See the help sites for Avast or AVG, if applicable.

Try browsing to the 'C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\LevelCache' folder and delete the contents. A corrupt file there can cause problems when saving or loading. The easiest way to get there would be to copy %LocalAppData%\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\LevelCache into the location bar in Explorer and hit Enter.

Try verifying local files: in the Steam library, right click on the game and select Properties, switch to the Local Files tab and then click on the 'Verify Integrity of Game Files...' button. If you are using the GOG version, in the Galaxy client, select the game, then the settings icon at the top right, beside the Play button and under Manage Installation, select 'Verify / Repair'.

Try exiting out of the Steam client, or Galaxy for the GOG version, and starting the game directly from the '..\SteamApps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\bin' folder, by right clicking the executable (bg3.exe for Vulkan, or bg3_dx11.exe) and running as administrator.

If applicable, disable Steam cloud support either globally or for only this game. For disabling Steam Cloud globally, within the client click on the Steam menu and select Settings, and then Cloud. Or just for this game: go to your Steam library and right click BG3 and select Properties, then switch to the General tab and check the Steam Cloud section. Alternatively, exit out of the Steam client, or Galaxy for the GOG version, and just start the game directly from the executable when required.

Next, try browsing to the 'C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Larian Studios' folder and rename the 'Baldur's Gate 3' subfolder. The easiest way to get there would be to copy %LocalAppData%\Larian Studios into the location bar in Explorer and hit Enter. This folder contains the saved games, configuration files and a level cache folder. Deleting or renaming it will get the game to recreate it on startup; playing the game from a different Windows user account would effectively do the same thing. With Steam/Galaxy running and cloud support enabled, the client would just download the cloud copy of your existing profile.

If you played in patch 6 or earlier and still have those profiles and saves, also browse to the '..\Documents\Larian Studios' folder and rename the 'Baldur's Gate 3' subfolder there, so patch 9 does not copy the game's earlier Documents folder to the local AppData folder as part of the startup procedure if there is no existing local AppData folder. You can also just delete the folder entirely if you don't wish to keep your old saves. 

After that, start the game and check that you can start a new game and save/load. If that works, exit and copy a couple saves from the renamed folder into the newly created ..\PlayerProfiles\Public\Savegames\Story folder. If that continues to let you start the game and load the saves, move the rest of the saves over. If loading still gives an error or crashes, delete the new BG3 folder and rename the original back again (as well as in the Documents folder, if applicable).
 

 

If a new game in a new profile folder also gives an error or crashes when loading:

Try doing a clean boot and then test the game. Click Start, or hit WinKey-R, type in msconfig and hit enter; in the General tab, click Selective Startup, uncheck Load startup items (if required) and leave Load system services and Use original boot configuration options checked. Next, click on the Services tab, check the box to Hide all Microsoft services, then click the Disable All button (maybe make a note of which are currently enabled/disabled), then click OK and reboot the computer. Run msconfig again to switch back to the normal boot configuration.

Try creating a new Windows administrator user account, switch to that account and try starting the game from there, directly from the executable.

If a new game is fine but recent saves give an error or crash, please contact Support with your latest save (or a Dropbox or Google drive link, etc), and if older saves are ok, the most recent save that you can load, and the oldest you can not.
In Explorer you can zip a file or folder by right clicking on it/them and selecting 'Send To | Compressed (zipped) Folder'.

Each save is a folder in the 'C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\PlayerProfiles\Public\Savegames\Story' folder. The fastest way to get there would be to copy %LocalAppData%\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\PlayerProfiles\Public\Savegames\Story into the location bar in Explorer and hit Enter.