Mass effect crashing very quickly after game start up

So i just bought this game on steam. No one recommended it too mean i just remember someone telling me it was a good game. So since it was only 20 on steam i got it. After the download and install i started it up and started playing the game. and probably about 5 minutes into the game i get a hard freeze total system locks up and i have to hold down the power button to get a restart. I've read around a bit and tried the running as system admin and I read about some glitch with anisotropic filtering so i turned it to linear instead. But still the problem continues. So any advice would be appreciated

System specs
cpu core i7 920 @ 3.8 ghz
ram ocz platinum @1600 mhz
vid card gtx 275
mobo evga x58 3x sli
OS windows 7 beta 64 bit