I have this problem as well, although my game crashes on the turn the Dread Lords arrive. Currently running DX9 on XP SP2. Have had crash with 2 different video cards, one ATI and one geforce. Graphics drivers up to date. Wondering if DX version is causing a problem, but I have no real clue.
Also, can't easily duplicate the bug for SmartException as I can't find a method for explicitly activating the dread lords event.