I've been extremely frustrated with CS 6, and as I'm writing this post, I can't explain why I haven't downgraded. Otherwise a perfectly stable system, I have random crashes and forgotten preferences like you do. I've seen a ton of other people complaining about random crashes, and we haven't seen a fix yet. The thing that causes it most for me is going into any of the preference dialogs after it's been open for a while, but it certainly happens in other random places.