Crash at material change

Hello, I just purchased a non-source copy of torque 3d and I am having crashes every time i try to apply a material. I modelled a stone complete with normal map and specular map, exported to dts and it appears properly with the "no material" material, but after i create a material, save it, and apply it to the model it asks if i want to save the previous material before changing it. whether i answer yes or no it crashes. i have tried both jpgs and pngs and no success either way. I'm running win7 64 ultimate, i have turned uac off, i am running both the frontend and engine as administrator. I have also scoured the forums for several hours now looking for someone else that may have the same problem and i have found nothing. Thanks in advance.