I did have crashing issues as well. These were probably awesomemod-related, since I had never experienced a crash before. I am playing the base game, no downloadable or custom content.

However the game was still more enjoyable even with the crashes so I kept on playing; the interesting thing is that they are gone now. Could that be of some use to you ? Is it possible that some initial elements are incompatible to what awesome affects but these elements are removed as time goes by ?

FYI, I installed the mod in the program directory and completely removed all content from the user profile documents before restarting the game. I then edited sunset valley to add cribs. Using an old cribbed sunset valley I found on the forum caused unbearable crashes at a certain point.