Vikki and Vance bug? Not the infinite caps one... [PC]

I have been trying my first playthrough of any Fallout game, and friends recommended I start with New Vegas. It's been great, but I have encountered the same bug in two different playthroughs at Vikki and Vance's Casino, and it's preventing me from progressing. When I try to leave the building, the game enters an infinite loading screen, and the only way out is to force quit the application. The first time it happened was right after I got that deputy out of the hotel across the street, and the second time was after I reported back that I found a new deputy from the NCRCF.

After the first time, I googled the problem and saw some people encounter this bug when leaving a building (not just V&V's) and to quicksave frequently. I hadn't been doing that, so I had to start a new game. When the bug happened again, I force quit the application and tried to load up previous saves, but they all take me to an infinite loading screen as well.

Am I cooked? Could it be a problem with my computer? Has anyone else encountered this? I was really enjoying the game (at least Goodsprings, Primm, and the NCRCF) and I want to play more. But I don't want to play the same 3 missions over and over.