What PLE Verison are you using and on wot OS?
Maya 8 and 8.5 for the Mac are quite buggy and do result in crashes. Also what specs is your PC. Maya can be a bit fussy if you are not using the correct hardware.
Just save, save, save, save, save, save, save, save, save and save some more.
Chris (formerly R@nSiD)
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Winner SM VFX Challenge 1
3rd Place SM SteamPunk Challenge (May 2007)