It's a right pain isn't it. There have been a handful of threads about it over last couple of months but nothing has been done except advice to change browser. I'm on IE9 and it happens constantly including buggering up any other tabs I have open.
I have IE9, I keep freezing too, and messages to say that Google/Answerbank etc have stopped working. Never used to get a black screen when on IE7, and not nearly so many messages about programmes stopping.