How can I connect the armature to my mesh without blender crashing? I am trying to make the armature the parent to the mesh with automatic weights but every time I try blender stops responding and has to be closed? Am I doing something wrong? 

I'm running Blender v2.76 on the cycles render
Try to remove subsurf modifier on you mesh before you apply the armature.

Else the armature will use the subsurfed model (much more vertices).