Zach,
If your autocad lost pickfirst during a crash, in my experience it likely lost other variables. I use my acaddoc.lsp to set all pertinent variables due to this happening a few times over the years.
Not all of these have been reset by crashes, but this is what I include in our company acaddoc.lsp.
Code:
(setvar "FRAME" 2)
(setvar "IMAGEFRAME" 2)
(setvar "PLINEWID" 0)
(setvar "PLINEGEN" 1)
(setvar "PICKFIRST" 1)
(setvar "ATTREQ" 1)
(setvar "ATTDIA" 1)
(setvar "PEDITACCEPT" 1)
(setvar "ATTIPE" 1)
(setvar "SAVETIME" 10)