OSX.2.6 Illustrator 10.03 Dual 800 G4

I have been saving some rather large EPS files ( 50-70 mbs) that may take as long as 3 minutes to completely save. The files have many objects with effects (blur) and one 30 mb link.
First, is there a way to reduce the size? I have saved the file without embedding or including the link, just preserving the link.

second, when I save the file (only when I save it as EPS) it crashes somewhere halfway through. This happens almost always if I open or even switch to Photoshop but can happen if I do almost any other activity on ther computer. If I do nothing but let it save, it will not crash.

I have no spell checker installed but do carry quite a few fonts and before I strip off all of them, I was hoping someone could tell me how to reduce the files and stop the crash.

If necessay, I will trash my prefs but resist this , hoping someone here might see a pattern that points to a specific cause.

Here's hoping, and thank you everyone for much help on previous topics

Joe