upon exiting my game last night and re entering it this morning, within 1 minute I get the "the sims 3 has stopped working" message and the game closes. I've tried a few times now but the same error message comes up within a minute. I have CC in my game but have not added in anything else since exiting the game last night and opening it this morning

Do you have any mods?

Yes I do, but I didn't download any new ones. And I took the mods folder out and tried the game again but the same thing happened!

1 - Does this happen only on an ongoing save, or can you get as far as starting a new test game? If you are on Patch 1.69, make sure the EP/SPs the saved game you were trying to load are selected; the new pack selector is notorious for forgetting selections in between game sessions.

2 - Have you tried clearing the five cache files in your game folder before starting up? Just the ones in the first section here, they should all regenerate the next time you attempt to startup.
http://simswiki.info/wiki.php%3Ftit...ete_Cache_Files

If not a problem with mods I'd have to agree with Igazor in perhaps deleting cache files, something may have gone wrong in the background and your game could have problems trying to load it this time around.