Hi Ken,
You seem to be doing everything right and that is a great image for a first go. Make sure you don't tick auto contrast but use the preview button instead. Leave gain and offset as 100/50 . Tick long exposure box and set to 60 second if desired then click preview. It will do the 60 second countdown and should display the image on the screen. I don't know why it crashes on yours when clicking on the preview button. It might be that you have other programs loaded into memory such as antivirus/firewall etc. I normally disable all loaded software when imaging. Adjust the histogram bar black/white until you are happy with the image then click Start.
Also, make sure save all uncombined images are selected and save in .tif format.
Hope it helps and keep it up
Feel free to ask away.
btw great M42 pic Doug! love the colours. Anymore?