Hi,
No problem for me with Windows 8.1 (64 bits) and Pharo 3, I use it every day. If your computer crashes, I would suspect some hardware related issue, not a vm problem.
Did you check in the system event log ?(right click on computer icon in the file explorer, choose manage then go in system tools/events log and see the system and widows logs)
HTH regards, Alain
