IPad/iPhone both crashing with email accounts added

Question

It all started about three weeks ago.  I installed a third party app for inventorying DVDs.  Soon after that my iPhone 4 started crashing with every app I tried to use.  I then noticed my iPad 2 doing the same thing.  I had installed the app on my iPad so see if it worked better on a bigger screen (bad eyes). 
Now my iPad was crashing.  Both units were running iOS 4.3.2.  I immediately deleted the app but they continued to crash.  I looked online and found that I should reset the units.  I did.  I reset them all the way to resetting the network settings.  Nothing.
I then saw that I should delete my email accounts, so I did.  Wow!  My crashes stopped.  Why would deleting my email accounts stop the crashes?  I then slowly added email accounts.  First my Exchange and then a couple of IMAP accounts.  (Note: this is happening on both iPhone and iPad).
This last Saturday I tried to call my wife and hit the PHONE icon and got nothing but a white field with the notations at the top for signal, Wi-Fi, and battery.  I had to text her to have her call me.  Once the call ended, the phone went right to the main icons.  Now I was desperate.  I need my phone for work.  I couldn’t see my contacts or get to the place I could make a call.  After three days of resetting, rebooting, turning off and getting short of throwing it at the wall I thought of something.  I deleted all my email accounts and guess what?!  My phone stuff came back.  My contacts were gone because I deleted my Exchange account but I could make a call now.
I have since added just my Exchange account to the iPhone to get my contacts back and it is working.  Right now it seems to be working but I don’t have all my email I need.
My iPad is different in that I upgraded to 5.0.1 last night.  The problem is still there.  To delete my email accounts, I had to go to Settings and select the Email line.  Then I set the iPad down and fixed my breakfast before the email account list came up.  I deleted the accounts and hard reset the iPad.  No crashes. 
I added an Exchange account and an IMAP account and the crashes return.
Why is my email causing my iStuff to crash?  I am to my wits end.  Upgrades, reboots, resets, cursing, head banging, fist through the wall, and praying does nothing to fix the problem.
Both units burn through battery when they are having problems.  The only good thing is the iPhone is a good hand warmer during cold weather.
What now?

Answer 1

+1: exactly the same issue.
Related Android bug:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2630
Sample mail sent from a Samsung Galaxy S2 that makes the app crash:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="--_com.android.email_118656394131318"
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Jan 2012 21:58:59.0097 (UTC) FILETIME=[8A796090:01CCDBAC]
----_com.android.email_118656394131318
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
dHUgcmXDp29pcyBtZXMgbWVzc2FnZSA/
----_com.android.email_118656394131318
Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
PGh0bWw+PGhlYWQ+PG1ldGEgaHR0cC1lcXVpdj0iQ29udGVudC1UeXBlIiBjb250ZW50PSJ0ZXh0
L2h0bWw7IGNoYXJzZXQ9VVRGLTgiPjwvaGVhZD48Ym9keT48c3BhbiBzdHlsZT0iZm9udC1zaXpl
Ojg3JSI+dHUgcmXDp29pcyBtZXMgbWVzc2FnZSA/PC9zcGFuPjwvYm9keT48L2h0bWw+
----_com.android.email_118656394131318--