Crashing at Save

Question

My iMac is crashing in textedit, preview, ps when trying to save files. TextEdit crashes with a new doc and text when it comes to the Save window. Preview and PS crashes the same way with any type of image file format.
10.6.8 Intel Core 2 Duo

Answer 1

Thanks for your input!
I've got over 600GB available on my HD, and 4GB, 800 MHz DDR2, SDRAM
Rather than "crash" the program "unexpectedly quit" at open of the Save or Save As window in multiple programs. After running through the usual Disk Utility, cache clean up, deleting unnecessary fonts, and booting into Safe Mode, I finally located the answer in this post:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15458523#15458523
However, after moving all my folders/files from the desktop to the HD, now when opening the HD or folder, the system hesitates to open them and sometimes finally opens the window or does not open it at all then closes all windows that were already open. I then have to double click the HD again and it opens fine. I tried it in new user account and in "root" with the same behavior.
Odd.
Any suggestions welcome!