Okies...I haven't used 2015 yet so this isn't specific to that version however...
I would ask...is this problem happening consistantly or only with a specific project? In other words, can you create a new scene, maybe put a textured cube in it along with a light...does that cause a crash as well? If it's just happening with the one project, you may have some corrupt data in the scene file. Is it a large project? Are you using a lot of lights or something? What render settings are you using? Have you tried running this project on a different computer with 2015? Any other programs causing crashes? Not saying that it couldn't be a bug in 2015 but I'd honestly look elsewhere. A few more details there may be helpful...
Beyond that and in general, assuming you did a fresh, proper install from the git-go, the first thing I'd suspect would be the computer itself or Windows 8. Maya can be a particularly resource intense program, especially once you start applying lighting and shading and such. To give you an example, I recently did a commision where the person wanted a hallway of the local community college. I had just done some repair work on my computer...one of the CPU fan clips broke and I was having a problem with my PC over-heating a bit (it was also causing Adobe Illustrator and particularly Adobe Premiere to crash...lots of reboots and BSOD's in XP64). After the repair, I installed a CPU temp monitor so I could keep an eye on things. Up till that hallway project in Maya, the system was humming along nicely for a few weeks at a very pleasent 125 degrees f. When I started rendering images on that project, that CPU core temp jumped over 160 degrees (I think she peaked at 167)!!!
Likewise, I would also make sure your system has a decent amount of RAM and particularly video RAM. Windows 8 don't mean much in that regard (other than being another bad joke on the part of MicroSoft)...you're system has a good 8 gigs of RAM and at least 4 gigs of vid ram, yes? Again Maya = resource intensive...make sure you're computer is physically up to the challenge.
Also...this should be common sense, but you don't have a lot of otherwise useless crap running in the background? You said you're running Windows 8 and from what I've heard, that program is really geared towards "social networking" and other such gibberish. This is gonna sound a tad harsh but it never ceases to amaze me when people have idiotic desktops, screen savers, IM, Facebook, Twitter and all this other stuff running on their computer...then don't understand why their programs just won't run properly. Right now this system has audio drivers and my graphics tablet drivers loaded...that's it...no screen savers, no "themes", no chat programs...nothing. Maya = resource intensive...turn all that other stuff off.
Okies...hopefully that will give you something to get you going and hopefully someone will come along with a bit more knowledge.
Good luck!
Jim
