As I said in my previous post, I'm not really a smart guy, but sometimes I like to think I am. So I was trying to figure out why I was getting sooo many memory errors while trying to save the game. It got to the point where I just couldn't save, period. So I did some digging through renpy forums on "crash while saving" and ran across something in the documentation about NPOT. In the notes about the feature, it said paraphrasing, "to reduce memory usage further, set config.cache_surfaces to False."
So I looked THAT up, and in my game I opened the console and on a hunch, since I don't really know what I'm doing, tried config.cache_surfaces = False" and didn't get an error so I assume it went through. Since then, I have still had incredibly long save times, but no crashes. I don't know if I "fixed" it, but just thought I'd share in case I stumbled on something important in my semi-ignorant meddling.
I only have noticed one difference in my game, during the scene where Sarah takes you to the strip club. When the strippers were changing poses AND stripping, I didn't see the clothing fade out as I usually do when a girl strips. I don't know if those scenes were supposed to have the fade out, but there you go. I haven't noted any other changes, anywhere else.