what’s the spec of your PC? or you on MAC?
MY Cubase 9 (latest version) doesn’t crash when doing what you stated. In fact since Cubase dropped the 32bit support it never really crashes : )
My spec
PC i7 quad core not over clocked
RAM 32GIG
solid state hard drive 500GB + normal hard drives for storing my projects plus video games 3TB X2
not that the graphics card matters but I have a GTX 970
OS Windows 10
How have you set up the management of your HDD’s for work flow? this can also help prevent your issue maybe? As it helped my PC run a bit smoother. I have HDD partitions for VST instruments / Audio samples / and projects. I also copy all files to working directory when working on stuff.
I hope you don’t swap over when a simple upgrade might be all you need? It would be cheaper than buying another DAW
Mike