This has seemed to be an issue as of late with IE8, with little acknowledgment or good solution last I looked but its related to ActiveX and possible Adobe's Flash Player from what I can tell.
First reset IE 8:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923737
Then remove Adobe Flash:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html
Then reinstall Adobe Flash Player:
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
You can turn off an option in IE8 to potentially resolve it from crashing; go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced Tab and unchecked the option "Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks" and restart IE8.
If that doesn't work you can turn DEP off by editing the Boot.ini file and turning off DEP by using the /AlwaysOff switch as mentioned here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352