I just recently came across this precise problem with the opening cutscene of my game; just as above, too many animated objects on screen for scenery effects, it chokes on one and crashes.
But what's odd is that it didn't used to, and I haven't touched the cutscene since I got it running correctly; the only things that have been added are later in the game, and I suppose this is some aspect of the engine or what-have-you that I'm not familiar with, but I can't see why the memory requirements of that scene would have changed when all that was added are things it hasn't even gotten to yet at that point in the load-up.
What's even more odd is that it's such a severe lack of memory; something like needs 788, has 132. And again, this sequence used to work fine. I'm rather puzzled, but I'll probably eventually figure it out; I'm just adding another account to the thread.