Running latest version of AE (18.4.1 Build 4) on a Windows laptop
16gb RAM
8gb GPU

When running after effects I can have a simple scene set up just a shape layer with wiggle on the position and an adjustment layer with any effect, wave warp for example, and after RAM previewing a few seconds the memory will fill up and the Comp window will freeze on the frame it's on. I can select anything/type/make changes in the other windows but nothing can be selected in the comp window. I have to restart the program to do anything but it also requires me to close it via task manager.

At first, I had allocated 12gb of ram out of the 16 available, but the RAM was filling up to 16gb usage in time with AE freezing. When I allocated 8gb instead I got the same freeze but the RAM hadn't filled past 9gb.

I'm not really sure if this is a RAM issue or AE issue, I just noticed that they seemed to be connected. I can run Photoshop, inDesign, and Illustrator without any problems as well as some games too.