Crashing - I think it has to do with either memory leak or UI

I have a pretty high end machine with 32mgb of Ram a high end CPU and 2 high end crossfired graphics cards. I'm sorry I can't remember my full specs right now as I'm not at home but it was an expensive custom built gaming box and I'm used to being able to run anything at max settings without issue. I'm running the latest version of windows 8 and I keep my drivers and windows updated regularly, I haven't tried turning off virus software yet, and I haven't run any sort of FPS monitor... hmm I'll give that a go tonight.

Anyways I'm experiencing a lot of lag and crashes and as near as I can tell it has to do with swapping between players bases by clicking on the UI or opening up the OFT/research UI panels. Once the game begins to lag as soon as I open up the extra UI panels or jump too quickly between player bases it almost guaranteed to freeze the game. The only solution is to close it through task manager and start over.

I rarely have problems with I'm playing with fewer than 5 players and I rarely have problems in multiplayer... although I've yet to play an 8 player multiplayer game so I'm not sure. If I'm playing a quick match against 7 AI's about 9 outa 10 games have crashed as soon as everyone gets to teir 3-4, making that almost unplayable for me. But it's not consistent, I've had the game freeze up in the 1v1 campaign several times and had the game crash on me right at the very end of a 5 player multiplayer game when there where only two players left. That last crash is suspect as it was obvious I was going to win and there's the possibility the host dropped before I could finish buying him out.

What information can I provide that would be helpful?