Since no one from either ea or bioware is commenting on these issues, here's what I do to prevent freezes and crashes, it's quite simple really:
As soon as the auto-save icon pops, stop everything! Don't move, don't rotate the camera, don't open the map, don't do nothing. (Of course there are times when you're in a battle, then you can only hope for the best).
Only save in safe places (Fort Griffin, Skyhold, etc). It happened to me more than once that I saved in the middle of the field only to be slaughtered by monsters while the game was still loading (black screen + loading icon). I could even feel the battle vibrations on my controller.
But seriously, as soon as it saves, STOP EVERYTHING.
Until they patch an option to disable auto save (Why isn't that option already there anyway? 0_o😉, that's the easiest solution to the freezing problems. I haven't had one freeze in the last 10 hours of play time that way! 🙂