Don't know if his helps anyone, but I was crashing right as the first loading screen finished.  Tried everything in this thread (and a number of others) and nothing worked...then I realized I had a tad of confusion that might be affecting others who find this thread. 

On the http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,15185.0.html page, there are two versions, "1.7.9/1.7.11/2.2.8 VERSION" and "1.8/2.3 TEST VERSION."  These version numbers are not (as I had previously thought) the version numbers of awesomemod.  They are the version of the Sims 3 game (I never noticed or cared what version of Sims I was running before).  So, possibly check the TS3 launcher and in the bottom corner of it, it says which version of the Sims is installed and download the appropriate awesomemod version.  (After all, why would anyone give a single download 3 different version numbers?)