Additional info:

Seems that in stable build 0.52.103.507 these modules are present but not working anymore.

• place a module "Sites -> Civilian Settlement -> Village" over Agia Marina or Girna: no civilians nor civilian cars show up.

This is not the cause of the crash. Steam ad just show up when you leave ArmA; they just don't care if you leaving is caused by a crash. Why don't you load up your crash dumps and your RPT to this ticket and give the devs a chance to fix the cause of your crash?

Not necessarily "those" keys you mentioned but yeah would be nice to have. Was discussed to death on BI forums pre Alpha.

I'm with the OP and Mike here. No need to block the placement of empty units, just block the preview. The fact that it always was like that since the beginning of times (or OFP) isn't very convincing.

Already reported. See ticket #03072.

Confirmed. Difficulty settings are not changeable through the UI but through direct config changes. Seems like a regression from first data update on friday. Verifyed by temporarily opting out of the beta program.