To everyone who is having this issue, I'm pretty sure its because the game cannot load the flying birds. I am also hardstuck on the southern reach meditation point, and its because whenever the game tries to load birds flying across the sky, it freezes and crashes. The southern reach little city area has birds flying all over the place so the game freezes immediately upon loading in. I've also had crashes at the very start of Koboh in the gorge crash site where there are birds sitting on the ledges by that collectible chest. As well as after fighting that first set of droids and bedlam raider, you cant exit the cave because it makes Cal do his little slip between the crack animation where it loads more birds on the other side and freezes the game. This is entirely unacceptable for a $75 game and I really hope EA pays attention to these bug reports, because this is seriously game breaking and needs to be fixed.
