I have the same problem. I thought I have not enough memory (6 GB), but since you have this problem with 8, maybe I am wrong. Surely 8 GB should be enough.

Also, what helped me to somewhat solve this issue was closing Firefox(It's eating a lot of RAM for me). Are you sure your RAM is not massively in use by other programs during your play?

Normal sized map.

I don't see stutters when it's autosaving, but indeed it looks like there's some sort of HDD access problem, especially with laptops having slow HDD.

It's always happens when I first load a game and zoom out (but it happens later too, when I scroll usually). I've measured system performance with Process Explorer at that time and it shows no spike in HDD usage. RAM usage is consistent too. Game eats 1.7 Gb RAM, physical memory usage is 6.6 Gb of 8. The only thing that spiked is GPU VRAM for some reason.

This is how VRAM graph looked for GalCiv3 (not the system) several seconds after this freeze (I've loaded a game and started to scroll to get it but it looks exactly like ones that happen during the game). It happened at the moment when GPU was not used and just after lowering of dedicated GPU usage and rise of System GPU. Dunno what could it mean, did the game try to switch to system GPU (Intel HD Graphics 4000)?!

same problem here, although i'm using SSD disk, CPU is quad core i7 3rd generation with 8GB of RAM

I understand this is stationary PC, no laptop, so you don't have integrated GPU. So my theory about it being a problem is not standing.

Your GPU probably has 4096 MB (2048 MB per GPU) GDDR5 VRAM so it shouldn't be a problem too. You also have SSD so it's not HDD either. Strange.

>The most easily reproducible situation is when zooming in/out 

Indeed, the screenshot I've posted earlier captures the moment of changing to icons - you can see cause planet names are fading.

>but the game is installed on a disk drive

Perhaps it reads something from swap file? Still it's strange cause we all have 8+ Gb of RAM and I have 1.5+ of free Gb of RAM when it happens.

I agree that the game is playable but those issues are irritating. I can bear with game slowing down for a second first time you open Research screen, for example, but this freezing map happens through all game session.

I too have the same problem. 16GB RAM, SSD, i7-4770K, GTX 980 - no other issues, just this, and it occurs randomly, but usually past turn 100. Zooming in/out repeatedly is the quickest way to reproduce.

Occurs with/without autosave

Occurs on all galaxy sizes

Occurs with/without Steam Community Overlay

Edit: I'm encountering the same issue on an Ultrabook with 8GB RAM, SSD, i7-4650U, Intel HD 5000.

Very similar issues to what i had reported. Though for me at least, the patch seemed to solve it. Still testing.
I'll watch this thread with an interested eye though.
Core i5 3570k @3.4ghz
16gb
gtx 560ti

I can confirm these freezes. They happened to me on the biggest map type only though. Usually they take 5-7 seconds and repeat 4-5 times in a row. Luckyily it only happens rarely. Any internet related feature that trys to connect which makes my Antivirus program causing the freeze issues? Like DRM or so...

IIRC (and Brad, Stardock, please correct me if I am wrong) in all of the GC series of games the AI attempted to do some of their work at the same time as the user, then finishing it up during the user's end of turn processing. This is one reason that the game's EOT processing is as short as it is when compared to other 4X games, such as the CIV series, especially in GC1 and 2 (in GC3 on larger maps with more possible opponent AIs, this is not as visually comparable because of the much larger set of data the game has to work with, but if GC3 didn't do this, the time for EOT would be much larger).

This happens to me as well. I am going to check my drivers and try again, but the game dies on me on Tiny map after exactly 33 seconds. Every time. I set autosave every 0 turns. This allows me to play a few turns at a time, then it freezes again. From what I have played, the game is amazing and I understand it is still early. I even recommended the game on Steam even though I can't play it because I love GalCiv and this is the best game since MOO. 

Specs:

Intel Core i7 2.4 Ghz

8 GB RAM

Intel HD Graphics 4600

Windows 8.1 (64 bit)

Hopefully they can fix some of this stuff in the June 1.1 patch. But if not, I will be paying attention to see what all happens.

It all become better after I've turned off my antivirus.

Makes me thing that the problem is not a specific bug but a performance problem on some systems in some specific narrow place. Probably loading of icons/models when you zoom out.

I disabled my antivirus and firewall. No help. Nothing else is running, small map, graphics set to low.

I know they are working on this so I will just wait until 1.2 comes out to see if they can get it to run. In the meantime, I plan to purchase a new desktop anyways. 

I am having the same problem as well, although mine gets stuck on that screen. The music still plays and the mouse still works. I even get sounds when I click, but no action and no movement on the map features. 

windows 8.1, Dell Inspiron 3520 

Intel Core i5-3210M 2.5 GHz

8G RAM

Intel HD Graphics 4000