@mclarense Please try playing the game in windowed mode. You can switch on the graphics options page at the Main Menu.
If you haven't taken steps to limit your in-game framerates, that's crucial too. You may be able to do so through the Nvidia Control Panel: click Manage 3D Settings > Program settings, choose TS3.exe (EA App install) or TS3W.exe (with the W, disc or Steam install), scroll down to Max Frame Rate, and set it to 165. If you get another crash, try 60.
If the above doesn't help, please look for new errors in the Reliability Monitor. Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, and you'll see a chart of errors and updates with a column for each day. Today is on the right.
Look for an error that happened at exactly the time of your most recent Sims 3 crash. If you find one, double-click it to see more details, then copy that info and paste it into a reply here. If you don't see a new error, check back in an hour or so—the Reliability Monitor doesn't always update right away.