Okay, put it through a series of timed tests. After one minute, the game always crashes. It doesn't matter what I'm doing at the time.
If Parsnip is walking, standing still, looking at something, or talking to someone, it will crash. If I have the bag open, it will crash. Even if I just leave the start menu open for one minute, it still crashes.
I'm playing on Windows 10, but it acts the same way on compatibility mode for Windows 8 and Vista. The game still allows me to save and load during the one minute time frame, but it's unplayable as soon as I get to the first conversation with Bell, which takes about 50 seconds going as fast as possible. I can't save fast enough to get out of the loop.
I've re-downloaded it three times using three different file extraction methods, but I continue getting the same results.
Those who are able to get it working- is there anything I've overlooked?