Yeeah... its a graphics card issue. Happens to me also, with my graphic card. See, mine does not support OpenGL, and, even though for me it tends to be faster with a 256 mb graphics card. it does tend to crash maya.
to anybody, and this would be your answer as well (I think):
How could you change Maya's active rendering from the base OpenGl? In 3ds Max there is a change graphics mode icon, but in maya????
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