To anyone who is crashing when trying to load their games, here's a fix that has worked for me in the past.

Also please NEVER save during a battle or your save will get corrupted.

When selecting your save file, double check the name of the file after you loaded it as sometimes it loads the incorrect file. If it does load the incorrect file here's one way to fix it.

Navigate to your empire at war saved games folder;
C:\Users\YOURNAME\Saved Games\Petroglyph\Empire At War - Forces of Corruption\Save

Move all of your save files to a different folder and leave only the save file you want to load inside that folder. (you might have to restart EAW after you do this) Then when you load the file it should show the correct one. You can just move the save files back to the folder once you're done playing if you want to use them again.

Hope this helps.