Bodyshop freezes with introduction of any custom content

Operating System: Windows Vista Home Basic
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc
System Model: Inspiron 1525
Processor: Intel Celeron CPU
Memory: 2038MB
Page File: 2240MB used, 2077MB avaliable
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

Name: Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Chip Type: Intel 965 Express Chipset Family
Approx. Total Memory: 358MB
Main Driver: igdumd32.dll
Version: 7.14.00.10.1409(English)
Date: 3/6/2008

I have: Base, Nightlife, OFB, FreeTime, Apartment Life, IKEA, H&M, Mansion and Garden, Family Fun and Glamor Life

Summary of the problem: Bodyshop loads just fine and I can go through the initial menus (Create a Project -> Create Clothes or Create a Sim -> New Sim etc) without a problem. Things get weird the moment I click on the clothes tab. Bodyshop freezes.

What I've done so far: The first thing I did was to remove all custom content and delete caches. I also double checked to make sure that I was using the Mansion and Garden version of Bodyshop.

Bodyshop loaded up without a problem and I was able to access the clothes. In other words, it worked perfectly.

Suspecting that it was a CC problem I went through the 50-50 method (I should mention that I ran bodyshop with just my mods in, and it worked perfectly) Finally I thought I had it narrowed down to a default replacement mesh. I removed that mesh and put in a few of the CC files that I had "cleared."

The game froze once again on the clothes tab.

Confused, I removed them and ran bodyshop (caches cleared) without any custom content. Not a problem in sight.

I then took one file of makeup (a Bruno eyeshadow) and dropped it into my downloads folder. I didn't nest it in an other folders. The game loaded--and froze on the clothes tab.

What really baffles me about this situation is that CAS runs perfectly fine in-game. In fact, if I hadn't wanted to try my hand at making some clothes today, I never would have known that anything was wrong with bodyshop.

On MTS2 I was c&ped an explanation about my graphics card being the culprit (and yes, I am well aware of the fact that my graphics card is a really bad one for playing the sims) but that doesn't make sense to me. If it was the graphics card, then CAS in-game would have problems as its much more graphics heavy than Bodyshop. And I'm puzzled as to why the addition of even just one piece of custom content causes Bodyshop to freeze like it does.