Panorama merging of photos

I use Elements 9 and want to merge a series of panorama photos. I have read the suggestions how to plan the overlapping images but still the process ends with a software crash. I select the images in the organiser and then go to File-New-PanoramaMerge. The program loads the images into the editor and then the program crashes (Photoshop Elements 9 has stopped working). Sometimes loading into the editor results in a black and white checkered image. I am at a loss as to what the problem is and where I am going wrong. On page 307of the manual their is a table of controls for manually adjusting the images to achieve a merge, however, I cannot figure out when these become active in the editor. I have tried working from the editor directly and loading the images manually.The images are reproduced in the work area but as seperate entities and it is not possible to merge them manually.  Since a section of the Elements 9 manual is devoted to this the function does exist in this older version it´s just a question of figuring out how to use it. Any help in this matter would be gratefully received. John McWilliam (jsmcwilliam@gmail.com)