When i try it tells me "iphoto quit unexpectedly".
There should be an error log in the panel with this message. Please post the first 100 lines of this error log (no more than 100 lines or so).
How much free storage do you have? if you let the free storage drop below 10 GB, it is not save to use the Mac anyway. That might explain the crashes.
A good way to free storage is to move your large media libraries - the iPhoto Library or your iTunes Library to an external drive. Get your self a small portable drive, make sure it is formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled) as described in this document for aperture (Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture) and then drag the iPhoto Library to that drive. Make a backup of your Mac, then test the copied library by double clicking it to open it, and when all is well delete the original on the internal drive.