Your System Specs
* OS: Windows XP
* Processor's type and speed: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ 2.01Ghz
* Ram: 2 GB
* Graphics card: Nvidia GForce 8800 GT, newest drivers (early May 2009)

The Circumstances of the Problem

Even though I've been playing since release, I recently bought Double Deluxe because I couldn't find Nightlife anywhere locally. I had to reinstall everything but kept my save files.
Everything is working fine, except that some of the lots in the downtown neighborhood crash while loading (before I get there) and I get an error message saying "The application has crashed. The application will now terminate." This happens either when I try to have sims (from various households) visit those lots, or simply when trying to load them via buy mode.
Not all of the downtown lots do this. FM, PURE, one of the bowling places, and a restaurant are some of those that crash while loading.
Others like The Hub, the Crypt club or one of the clothes shops work perfectly fine.
(I apologize for not knowing all the exact names, if needed to help, let me know!)

I've tried deleting and reloading the downtown neighborhood and also followed the procedure described in the Game Problem section until it led me here. (Not just read, did everything it said.)

I also updated my video card drivers.
Thanks for any help!

So this persisted with no custom content, yes?
Can you see any pattern as to which lots do or don't crash?

Yes, the last few times I tried it, using the Game Help walkthrough, I didn't have any more custom content, saved sims or neighborhoods at all.

The only pattern there is is that it's always the same lots that crash. Other than that, I can't find a pattern at all.
At this point I'm guessing something went wrong during the installation and those files got corrupted. But it's a guess on my part.