Yep, ran away from combat.
BTW, I've just grabbed Fallout 2 US (1.02), installed RP 1.2 (yup, patch000.dat disappeared), and reproduced the same bug from the very beginning. Created same character (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yomhikcidwz), quickly got through the temple (lockpicking...
I've left the Arroyo for the first time, got the Kaga, ran away, crashed on the next encounter. After that all the times I load savegame where I haven't left the Arroyo yet, leave Arroyo and crash on the first encounter.
And no, I only installed RP and Hi-Res patch (I didn't mention it since...
Fallout 2 UK (1.0) + F2RP 1.2 crashes with memory read error on random encounters. The only time it didn't crash is when I got Kaga encounter (but it crashes even if I didn't have it yet). I tried decreasing encounter rate in ddraw.ini and it obviously helped. Is this the empty encounter bug...