Conboy, this is the first time this has happened to you? If so, consider yourself extraordinarily blessed.
I have just "acquired access" to a newer laptop (sheesh, it sounds like I
stole it; it's a long story, but rather than buy a new one, I was lucky to be granted the permanent use of this one) which has Windows 10 as OEM. The old laptop, originally Windows 7 (upgraded through Windows 8.1 to 10 and works fine for everything else) couldn't run OOB above version 7.1.4 without crashing, especially the editors.
I am saying this because I realized that this was my problem, not Slitherine's or The Artistocrats'. I couldn't expect them to fix my laptop or investigate if there was not a widespread problem of OOB crashing with the newest versions.
So I don't mean to criticize them but I doubt that they are going to address the occasional crash. Version 8.1.0 seems to be very stable but I would not bat an eyelash if it crashes now and then. Merely CTRL+ALT+DEL, call up Task Manager, end the program, and restart.
It's when the game crashes frequently and more importantly,
predictably (the same amount of turns, or doing the same routines, and boom) that is an indication of a programming problem. Otherwise, it's probably a local problem.
This sounds like making excuses for them which I don't mean to do but it's important to be realistic in our expectations.
That said, when the game crashes, it usually saves some files in a folder like this in this location (notice that you must be able to see Hidden Files):

- Image0019.jpg (94.76 KiB) Viewed 559 times
(Heh, I had a crash nine days ago and didn't think anything of it.) Zip your "Crash" folder and post it here; maybe somebody in authority will take a look and comment on it.