Game crashes when AI spams strikecraft / mines

  Aside from the noticeable drop in framerate, my game crashes whenever there is a heavy mine presence or an insanely large amount of strike craft nearby.

   -Game crashes whenever I enter a heavily mined orbit.  Generally when the entire build grid is covered in mines.  This happens when either me or the AI does this.


   - Game crashes whenever I enter a heavily strikecraft-defended sector.  The entire orbit is nothing but a sea of fighter/bomber icons.  So far I've only seen the AI do this, I'm not quite sure if a player has the ability to build hundreds of carriers. 

   I'm also getting a windows C++ runtime error every 30minutes or so as well.

   Has anyone else noticed that the AI creates enormous amounts of mines and strikecraft?

specs:
windows vista home premium 64b
intel 2.66ghz core 2 quad
gtx 280
4gb ram