Why are my characters deformed when I render them?

It is probably because "Segment Scale Compensate" is activated on some bones. When Golaem Crowd scale it to fit your simulation, Crowd Field or Entity scale, the scale is applied twice.

You should import you geometry file (.fbx), make sure no extra-namespace has been added, uncheck the  "Segment Scale Compensate" on all bones, and reexport it.