Kerbal Space Program

I am progressing in a new career mode game, granted it is heavily modified, but I'm seeing some pretty nasty Krakens. My first several missions went well, but now, as they are getting more complex, I'm having trouble. The basic pattern seems to be -> Do half of mission, -> return to KSC to reconnoider -> KSC is in null pointer mode (buildings not clickable) and game has to be restarted -> restart game -> go to tracking station -> go to ship. -> Explosion or other epic failure.

Jeb was killed by the Kraken around Fragum (between mun and Minmus in my game) when I had done the steps above to square away a contract I had just finished. Because PlanetFactory is so stale, I'm not going to report that one...

In this screenshot (regular stock minmus), the stock fuel tank detached from the stock science module with half the parts still connected in constellation fassion to the ship and the rest remaining as shown. The ship had kinda glitched into the ground, I experimentally fired the engine to see what would happen and decided to take this screenshot.

I think this is a save-load issue. =\