After Effects Stops Responding once hitting "Render"

Hey there,

I'm at my wits end and don't know what else to do. I'm working on a fairly large commercial project. Whenever I go to render it, my app immediately stops responding. It does the same on a friends computer. I've used AE for years and have never had this problem. There are around 560 precompositions layered throughout the final comp. I have no idea what else to do.

Is there any solution to this? Is there anything I can post to help identify the problem?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks