Unity Editor crashing when editing scripts referenced from GameObjects

Ok, here's an interesting one for you:

The Unity Editor crashes abruptly when saving scripts while in Play mode.

I have a handful of scripts on GameObjects, and I'm referencing some global vars between them. For example:

Spaceship has a GUI object running all it's GUI functions, and asks a spaceship object's main script if it's moving:

localPlayerMove = FindObjectOfType(typeof(scrPlayerShipMove));
    if ( localPlayerMove.isSteering )
        drawDirectionHUD();

This actually works just fine. I'm not having any trouble with this. The problem is that if I have the game running in Play mode in the editor, and I save any changes to any script in the scene, Unity crashes. If I makes those same changes while not in play mode, the script compiles just fine and the editor is happy as a clam. Also just to be clear, if I comment out my script referencing, the editor does not crash when saving scripts. This also occurs with GetComponent stuff like:

playerShip.GetComponent(scrPlayerShipMove);

Anyone out there have any clues? I'm a bit puzzled.

My first thought was that somewhere in the script reload process a variable is not getting initialized quick enough and there's a divide by zero or something. Which would partially explain why the 'offending' code works just fine when starting fresh. I've looked around and couldn't find any of these, though.