Good to hear that you got the game up and running. I think the gpu you bought is a good fit for this game. I know how frustrating it is to throw in some new hardware to find that you're having problems with it.

For future reference, apon any install of new hardware, especially CPU, RAM, and GPU, its usually a good idea to run everything at their default speeds and test for stability. If you're stable, then you could get into overclocking, usually just overclocking and testing one piece of hard at a time. It complicates it when you throw it all together and try to overclock everything right away. Overclocking ANY of those components too high will all result in similar errors to the one you had.

For CPU overclocking, I'd recommend using prime95, which is a program that will load and stress your CPU at 100%. If there is any issues with your CPU overclock, it will stop and give you an error. Is also good for RAM overclock testing aswell.

For GPU overclocking, I'd recommend you installing MSI Afterburner. This will let you adjust your GPUs clock speed, voltage, and even fan speed. You can set the fan at 100% all the time, or you can set a custom fan speed curve, which is very handy. For actual testing of the GPU stability, you already have furmark.