Saving a document arriving by e-mail

Whenever a .doc attachment is sent to me as an
attachment, I open it up to see if I want to save it to
disc. If I do want to keep it, I click on file, save as,
and suddenlt the top bar flashes on and off, then it
proceeds to lock up my computer. HOWEVER, after
restarting my system and re-opening the file, I can go to
the top, space bar down twice, followed by using the
delete key, eliminate the spaces I've added, I can save
it.

Is there something I'm doing wrong or how can I eliminate
this problem from happening?

Regards

oldsherm