The saves definitely exist somewhere, because the game is drawing upon them, I just can't find them anywhere.
Well yeah, but you are using Vista, and you have installed the game into the Program Files folder, a huge mistake... as all your saves could be mirrored into the hidden ProgramData sub-folder.
I thought of that, but they're not there either...
Ascension64's last post was the one that fixed it, actually: I had a CTD whenever I tried to leave Candlekeep with a helmet on, bnut taking the helmet off solved the problem flawlessly. A strange bug nonetheless.