Yeah this happens to me a lot as well. But it's fixed by reload, so I haven't been too bothered by it so far. (I think it crashes after autosave? so you pick up from where you left off)
Think of it as "dirty tricks" from the AI. They can't beat you in the normal game, so they crash the game instead 
On a more serious note, doesn't all crashes get logged with Stardock now after they ported the game to steam? That's why I haven't bothered reporting crashes so far.
