We have timed the game loading and the Museum loading, and there is little difference between a low-end computer and a high-end in that regard, with an SSD helping the most, but a 1.5 to 2 minute game load, and a 3 to 4 minute Museum load is right on the mark. The game loads ~EVERYTHING~ in the Data folder, so the more you have there, the longer it takes. Just the nature of the game.
The Save folder is a strange beast - in my opinion - in the Silent Hunter games. You have all of that data in the Data folder, yet the game copies a goodly portion of it to the Save folder, and basically turns it into a giant *.ini file for "quick" retrieval later. Not just pointers to the Data, but actual copies of files, as well as quite a number of newly created files, made by combining portions of several files from the Game's Data folder into a new one in the Save folder. The sad thing is, one bad bit in the Save folder can "trash" attempts to re-load the Saved game, so Yes, the Save folder is very important. To top it all off, when you activate a mod and go to play the game, it will NOT update any file already existing in the Save folder. Therefore, you can end up with a mix of Stock, GFO, TMO and FotRSU, if you haven't emptied your Save folder between mod activations / de-activations. If you do not have anything "important" in the folder, it would be a good idea to empty the folder, just to be certain. Then start the game and try the Museum once again.
Another point to make about the game, and one which I just take for granted anymore, is the fact that the game's "Menu" is rather deceiving. Technically, it shouldn't allow you to go back to any other aspect of the game, other than the one you first used. Either that, or they should re-write the program so that it "cleans house" better when it exits from one section, or what I call "mode" of the game. What I'm getting at is that once you load the Museum, the game will not close out the RAM and "swap" file that it used to "build" the Museum. What that does, is if you then attempt to use the Career menu, or Load a Career Saved Game after the Museum, you will most likely crash, and vice versa. If you use a Single Mission, you will most likely crash if you attempt a Career or the Museum, etc. If you use the Career menu, you then most likely will have issues using the Museum and / or Single Missions, etc. Think of the Menu choices as being Mode Selections, and once you make a selection for that particular Session of the game, that's it. You have to exit the game and re-start it to use a different mode. I'm not certain if SH5 is like that (I suspect it is), but SH3 definitely is also. So a Museum crash could be due to that also...
