You can also stuck when building the elevator and it's not powered.
Yes, but only on the "finishing up..." screen now; although, The Sims 3 tends to also freezes at the beginning (for only a few seconds) but still works (but laggy), so it might just be my PC.
It used to crash before I updated my graphic card; now, it just freezes (stops responding) when creating a new game at the character screen.
