This may be correct, and might be even from vanilla. Once I spawned a raider near Sunshine Tidings just to test turrets, and forgot to reload the save. After a while, I was getting attack warnings in that settlement, and every time I tried to get near it I was crashing. I found out in the Buffout 4 crash logs that the same raider I spawned was causing the crash, because I was able to reload a save from when I killed him and got his ID. It was the same ID the crash log was reporting.Its not actual data corruption. More of something like a NPC from a mod that didnt spawn correctly. The problem can heppen more on modded installs. Has been an issue with Bethesda games since Morrowind days. I'd try sleeping in an interior cell somewhere like Dugout Inn in Diamond City.
Power grid corruption may cause problem as well, but it takes some time. Avoid using things such as long wires or wireless hacks, and always remove wires before scrapping powered objects. Also do not ever use anything other than the workshop to scrap objects.