Hi Tim,
I’ve done the same process with Maya and 3dsmax and I tried .apb and .apx with the same crash result.
I think you are missing the main step here. If you have a high res graphical mesh you may not want to simulate all of those vertices. So you instead use a “custom” physical mesh. What I did was take a simple plane, position it to the same location as the cloth mesh and skin it to the same bones. In the tool 3dsmax or Maya, where it says “Physical” mesh you can replace it by selecting “Custom” and choosing the plane mesh. It will now simulate using the custom mesh as a guide and only simulating the vertices on that mesh while binding the graphical cloth mesh to it.
http://screencast.com/t/fumDlVsKh
I have linked to a screen capture of me creating this example. Try this and see what happens on your end.
Thanks!