After further investigation and forum digging, I came across an extremely helpful thread from Bribe that shows a
list of things known to crash WC3.
If you take a look at #4 & #12:
Giving the Heroes you buy from the tavern a default WC3 icon fixed the issue for me. I suggest re-making the icon because the texture paths you give them look okay to me.
OT: I see my Volatile Light resource in here (; you have earned brownie points from me, friend.