Windows Explorer Crashing (Windows 8)

So I've had this computer for a little over a year now and the past like 6 months windows explorer has been acting somewhat bizarrely, when I right click a file it sometimes takes ages (like 20-30 seconds) before the drop down list appears, other times it happens instantly. When I use 'save as' it occasionally crashes too, which is the most frustrating thing ever, because it almost never actually saves and just crashes and loses everything it even crashes Notepad which I didn't think was possible.

Just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar or might be able to suggest something to fix it? I don't really know what I'm doing and I don't wanna make it worse ;_;