Here is what you should do to trouble shoot your problem.
- Open up the composition that is giving you problems
- Your error message tells you that you are having problems with the Shatter effect so select the layer with the shatter effect and turn the effect off
- Try a ram preview
- If the ram preview is successful add a solid to your comp
- Copy your shatter effect and paste it to the new solid you created
- Turn off all other layers
- Try a ram preview
- If the ram preview crashes go back to step 6 and reset shatter and try again
- If the ram preview is successful start adding the properties from your original shatter effect until you get a crash.
- If the ram preview works the first time you try step 6 then there is something wrong with the combination of shatter and the original layer it was applied to so remove shatter from that layer, pre-compose that layer moving all attributes to the new layer then paste the working shatter from the solid to the pre-comp, turn off the solid and try another ram preview.
Do you kind of get the procedure here. When something is causing a crash first isolate that problem, try it on something simple, then try different things until you can reproduce the crash. Make sure you are saving copies of your project so you can easily go back.
If you can't figure out what settings in Shatter are causing the crash then we need to know everything there is to know about your composition and see a screenshot or the project file. If it is the footage that is causing the crash then you need to transcode, recompress, or in some other way change the format of the footage. There is nothing we can surmise from the details you have given us that give us any clue why shatter is crashing. It usually does not. I can't think of the last time it caused a crash for me. The only possible thing I can think of that would be causing a crash is that the number of particles is causing your system to run out of memory.