The iPhoto issue appears to be a problem with a corrupted image file. Several commentors on NetworkWorld reported similar problems that were traced to a corrupted file and one reported his iPhoto contained over 25,000 photos with no problem.
Another suggested holding down Option-Apple key combination while starting iPhoto forcing a rebuild of the library.
I have had the exact same issue with Google's photo indexing tool on my PC. A corrupted image file was the problem.
I had a few corrupted image files from my old XP system that I also brought into iPhoto on my new Mini. iPhoto just gave me an error message and refused to add them to the library, but it didn't crash.