After searching in the forums for help with a Geneforge 1 crash right at the end of the game, I found this thread. Not only did Tannhauser's suggestion work for me in resolving the crash, it also resolved some graphical issues.
Before I tweaked the memory setting, the fonts used on the game screens wouldn't load properly, which meant the text at the bottom might get cut off or hidden behind buttons.
Once I made the changes described in Tannhauser's post above, everything worked great!