Distant Worlds has stopped working

[CyclopsSlayer]

Using Win7 64bit Home Premium SP1. Playing DWL 1.7.0.17 build.

2 of my last 3 games have crashed out with a 'Stopped Working' error, according to Windows. No error log generated by the game.
I can restart at the last auto-save point so not fatal, just very annoying.

[Harmonious Hegemony]

I am now having this same issue since installing ROTS. Same OS and all. It is happening every game I play after a variable number of hours, but always when the game is well advanced. It is a hard error in that I can go back to a save game and I get the Stopped Working error notice at more or less the same point every time. Were you able to solve the problem? Has anyone encountered this and successfully fixed it?