Game freezes during saves (unfreezes after several minutes pass)

[askelly35]

When I save the game, it freezes just after the save is performed, and I'm unable to move away from the place where I've saved for many minutes (up to 10 minutes now...)

More details:
I can lean (left and right), bring up the notebook but cannot do anything else. I have to wait until it unfreezes. With every save the freeze time is getting longer...

I have not applied any patches as I don't want to have to start all over. Are there any tweaks I can make??

My machine:
Athlon 65 3500
EVGA 7800GT with latest Nvidia drivers