This probably has been discusssed before, but in multi player, if i click on the area map button, the game crashes. Is this common, and is there any way to fix it?

First time I hear of it, and I've been around for a while. :p
Without the DX7 patch multiplayer in BG won't work anyway, so if you got it to work without it consider yourself lucky. ;)
You can get that patch and all of the others at http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG/index_misc.htm