For those of you running the software from a USB flash drive I have a found a solution to the crashing that worked for me.
Open your USB drive and right-click the folder that BeerSmith is installed in and select Properties
Even though the Read-only Box is grayed out, un-check the box next to Read-only
When prompted, select apply to folder and all files and sub-folders
Open BeerSmith and you should be good to go
Kopf