Ok, a little more experimenting yielded more information.
When I run startx, the resolution is much higher than it should be. I can assign the key to allow control_alt_backspace which allows me to force quit without crashing but if I keep my resolution as 1920x1200 (which is what it logs in as) or 1920x1080 (what it is suppose to be) it crashes. So, if I set the resolution to 1024x768 and force quit ... all is well.
Now what?