I went into search and found this has been a problem since 2002. Is there a general answer as to what causes the game to suddenly crash to a white screen, sound crashes about 20 seconds later? What can be done about this?
Boo
a crash can be caused by hundreds, thousands of things, more than likely most of them have to do with your computer and have nothing to do with the game. Some piece of malware on your computer can cause the game to crash and HTC can do nothing about that.
First thing is to go through your computer. Clean it out and defrag it. Next re-down load the game and do a clean install. This means moving your setting folder and saving it. Un install the game completely including checking that the desktop icon is gone. Reinstall the game, and hope it all works.
even after all that you could still have a problem if your internet connection is going flaky.
Nothing is perfect, and the internet and computers worst than most things. If the computer is crashing often then I would try these things. If it isn't often then I'd let it go. Your choice.