PI3 Crashes when i try to save

Hi guys.

Ive been a long time user of Pi3 and I absolutely love it.
Untill recently that is.

I load it up as usual and i can produce my effects with no problem, on the background image or movie of my choice, no problem.

But when i go to 'save output', either through the 'Action' tab or just clicking the record button, i get the 'Output Options' window but as soon as i click 'ok' on that, the programme crashes and i get that lovely error message window 'particleillusion has stopped working'.

I cant seem to figure out why this is crshing all of a sudden.
Ive been having this issue for a few months now and ive tried almost everything, from uninstalling and reinstalling (several times) to uninstalling any other programme that i think may effect it.

Any ideas guy?

Im running Vista but as i said, it was working fine once!

thanx in advance