[newbie] Emacs is giving Fatal Error 11

[SOverload]

Almost always when I look at something in emacs, when I try to do a C-X C-V 
to exit, it crashes and I get a fatal error.  Can someone please explain the 
process of exititing emacs with and without saving the document.  It 
frustrating because it locks up the entire shell and I have to kill -9 the 
whole shell to get it back.