Does Software Update CAUSE crashes, or come up AFTER crashes?

Over the past 6 months or more my machine has only hung (i.e. requires a press of a hardware button to restart), about 3-4 times. Each of those times, when I restart the first thing I see is the Apple Software Update screen. At least a couple (if not all) of those times the second thing I see is the Microsoft Office Automatic Update Screen.
I was in the office over the weekend, and no IT guys were around, and the OSX SERVER crashed (which knocked me off the internet, and also off the file server). When I restarted that machine, the first thing that came up was the Apple Software Update.
The question I have is:
* Could the Apple Software Update application be causing my crashes, or
* Am I seeing a feature where OSX says "hey you just crashed, let's check for updates now, even if it hasn't been a week (which is what your preferences say I should wait)".
Does anyone know? I've asked my IT guys here, and they've gone back and forth on it.
Thanks,

Why speculate? Chances are, if you look in the system console, you can find some information that might shed some light on this problem. The console is located in the Utilities folder.

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