Link between Space debris/anomalies vs planets populated = crash??

I've only played three times, never had a battle, obviously playing very easy setting but it seems to me that there is a direct relation between the number of planets you've colonized and the event of picking up space debris or anomalies. Once I have a run away population growth, lots of star systems and lots of planets, it becomes a 50-50 chance of a crash when my captial ship picks up space debris.

By crash btw I mean the entire game closes, no error message, no gpf, no entry in the event log, the game just closes. Of course once it's done that once the crashes become more often to the point where i have to start over with a new game.