Holding shift works, but using control (as it is with other programs) causes the crash to happen. I use Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT as the video card. The drivers are those from the CD, otherwise never updated (but should be fairly recent). Pressing the A key works just fine. It's as soon as I right-click (this should normally be left-click) on something while holding the control key. Normally, when selecting multiple objects, it's the control key. The shift key is used to select a range.

It seems like everything is backwards in Blender. It's left-click to select things and control to add/subtract to the selection, not right-click and shift. It's often messing me up as all other programs have it the opposite of what Blender is using (and Blender doesn't seem to remember the settings every time which adds to the annoyance as snapping is disabled and that sort of thing.