Hello,
this could be a memory problem; the running configuration is saved in DRAM, and the startup configuration is stored in the NVRAM section of flash memory. Does the switch actually crash ? If so, you might want to post the output of ´show stacks´, that could give an indication of what is going wrong.
Also make sure the configuration register settings are correct. When you do a ´show version´, at the bottom you should see the following:
Configuration register is 0x10F
Regards,
GP