Do you mean they actually crashed, as in an error message from Windows and the programs stopped running? Or just that things took a long time or something else?
If every program you ask to read a folder crashes as a result, there may be something wrong with the drive the folder is on.
It's also possible that a shell extension is crashing when asked for information about some of the files in the folder.
Is any crash dumps were generated, they can often be used to see which component is causing the crash.
Fixing the cause of the crash it what's needed. Slowing things down probably won't help. Speed is usually not the issue.
Here is a good place to start:
It may also be worth checking if you can successfully list the directory from a command prompt, in case the problem is very low level (e.g. failing hardware). Run cmd.exe then type
dir "x:\whatever\the\path\is" and push return. Does that also crash?