On my old PC, which was minimum spec for Vue 6 Infinite, to load a Poser scene like the one you describe I learnt to do the following:

1. When setting up in Poser avoid over the top textures - if your only planning on rendering a 1000 pixel by 1000 pixel image of a figure do you need a 3000 pixel square texture for the head that will be less than 100 pixels in your render?  Sometimes this means reworking textures you've bought with lower resolution versions of the images in them.  Resolution is important here not file size.  Sometimes you can avoid using a Poser texture altogether and texture in Vue later, for example use SkinVue's procedural skin instead of a Poser skin texture or a fabric texture made in Vue.
2. Don't try to put too many figures into a scene to import at once.  Sometimes it can be worth saving each figure for the scene as you posed them in Poser as a separate poser file
3. Shut down any uneccessary software - no music players, web browsers or anything else.  Do not try to run Poser at the same time as Vue.
4. Make sure you don't have power saving modes switched on on your machine that may interupt Vue because they think it isn't doing anything
5. Start a fresh copy of Vue
6. Reduce the number of stored undo's to 1
7. Set all the view ports to display Wire Frame Box
8. Turn off Show Fog in Vue on the Main Camera View
9. Turn off Density from Atmosphere on the Main Camera View
10. Turn off Auto Update on the mini preview
11. Load the figure into Vue
12. When the poser import box comes up 1. Do not refresh mesh while moving timeline slider - Checked
13. Allow re-posing inside Vue - Unchecked
14. Render materials using Poser shader tree - Unchecked
15. Import only a single frame from poser if you are doing a still
16. Be patient and let Vue have time to do the import - have a break
17. Once the import has finished Purge memory
18. If you use SkinVue use it now.  Do any other texture work in Vue that you want to.  One way to save some memory is to check for materials that can be easily improved by using a Vue material - glass and metal are common ones I look for - these often have reflection maps that can be discarded as a Vue material will reflect the enviroment you put the models in
19. Save the resulting figure as a Vob
20. Repeat this for each figure if you have several for the scene.  Close Vue and start it again for each figure.
21. Close Vue and start it again for each figure.
22. Load the Vob files in one at a time.  Purge Memory again for each figure as you bring in the Vob.

Also sometimes you need to be patient with Vue and just let it work.  Just because your computer says it's not responding don't panic and start loading other things or running diagnostics or starting task managers.  Once you do this Vue probably won't respond in my experience.  Take a break for 5 minutes and if it still isn't working when you come back then shout at it :-)

Save frequently while working. 

Do basic computer maintainance including checking your machine isn't overheating (which was a problem I had for a while and it made Vue look like it was broken), make sure you have plenty of free hard drive space.  Defrag your hard drive etc at least once in a while.

Hope something there helps.

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