PowerPoint 2011 crashes when trying to format shape
Solution is to completely uninstall MS Office in your local language (Google how to, it's a long and painful process). Then clean install MS Office IN ENGLISH. It worked for me anyway - I've encountered the same weird behaviour on 2 machines with Russian MS Office, while the 3rd (with English one) was running fine. Guess this is just Microsoft's way of saying "learn friggin English, dudes!" :)