I haven't had that problem, nor have I noticed any particular pause while saving, there is an area under the render button, where you see things like "saving doc settings" and "saving objects" and stuff like that - I just wait until that's stopped before doing anything else. Maybe that's why I haven't had it crash on me for that? Also, I don't think I've done many very big scenes, I think the biggest was the "Station Approach" image in my gallery. The station itself wasn't too bad except that I used an awful lot of small models of a "knutt" - sort of like a bolt but made by me with my then minimal modeling skills. Plus a few platforms with glass domes and a lot of glass landing lights etc, and the ship in the foreground and the various nebulae - But that didn't use image based textures at all, gawd knows what might have happened if it did. I probably wouldn't have finished the picture at all.

Measure your mind's height
by the shade it casts.
Robert Browning (Paracelsus)

Fran's Freestuff

http://franontheedge.blogspot.com/

http://www.FranOnTheEdge.com