Can a math intensive application cause a crash?

I have been messing with hash functions and functions to generate primes etc.

I had 3 lock-u开发者_高级运维ps in a short period. This was odd since my macbook rarely locks-up and usually only when I run out of memory - which does not happen often.

But in this case, I had three in a row and none since (but I also am not generating as much load as before).

Maybe the CPU overheats and shutdowns itself for safety?