I am grasping here - is your Windows maintenance up to date?  Also, your device drivers?
 
And, have you tried working with this project with Norton temporarily suspended?  
 
Just some quick to try oddball things that have caused the occasional person nightmares in the past.
 
Lastly, what happens if you open the project, then do a Save As, to a completely new project folder?  You might try it first with the box checked for copying the audio over, and if that still doesn't work, try doing it again to yet another project folder, and this time do not copy any audio over.
 
I am wondering if there is some subtle corruption in the project.
 
Bob Bone
 

Drivers up to date and disable Norton does not help, but it is OK, the corruption was eliminated with the deletion of all audio tracks.   Now I have 20 midi tracks with events in place and am in the process of rebuilding the audio tracks one at a time, will let you know when or if crash happens. 

Yeah - that was where I was thinking you were going to end up.
 
At least it was only that one project, if that is a bit of a silver lining.  Wish I knew something else you could try.  :)
 
Bob Bone