Nifelheim 1 Lock Up

Just installed the game a couple of days ago and love it. I have been having a severe craving for a space sim and the market is serious lacking for a good one. I was playing the Nifelheim 1 mission several times last night and didn't have a problem with it other then the fact I kept dying trying to take out the docked carrier. Finally gave up shut off the computer and went to bed. This afternoon decided to give it another go. Autopilot to the first encounter with the fighters works. Destroy them and then hit autopilot to go to the next point and right at the end of the cut scene flyby you see a couple of hesitations and then total lock up. Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't even work. I have to hit the reset button on the case. I haven't done anything to the computer between last night and today so I'm at a loss as to what is happening. Any ideas?

i7-3930 3.2 GHz
16 GB RAM
Win 7 Pro 64 bit
Nvidia Quadro 4000 video card Driver:8.17.12.9573 Feb 9, 2012
Intel 450GB Solid State Hard Drive