I've seen a thread or two about the lag problems in Skyrim on the PS3. However, I've seen few (if any) about Skyrim actually crashing the system. Perhaps my case is actually a lag, and I'm just not waiting long enough. The lag cases seem to be related to Autosaves, and I will admit that some of my crashes seem to be around the point an Autosave might occur. However, sometimes it's also during a load operation. Sometimes, it appears rather random.
Usually, a reboot will leave me in the clear for a couple hours or so. I've had the system crash on me twice in just tonight's session of a few hours.
Once, it appeared that it was just the game that had crashed - I was able to access the PS3's menu by holding the PS button. However, after selecting to quit the game, my system instead gave an error beep and rebooted. Every other time though, the whole system would just be hung - I couldn't even access the shutdown menu, a couple minutes after the start of the hang.
Is this a known common issue with the game? Or, is this just my PS3 telling me I'm playing too much Skyrim and it needs a break? Could it be an actual problem with my system?
One bit of information that would be helpful in diagnosing this is, from those who are more intimately familiar with the "lag and chopping" I'm reading about, how long does the system typically hang during Autosave lag?
P.S.: I'm aware that a proposed workaround for the "lag" issue is to disable Autosave, but I've had that feature save my tail enough times I'd rather not.
P.P.S: In response to a comment - I've now been playing Need For Speed: The Run for probably much longer than any single shot I had at Skyrim before a crash.