I'm having the same issue - Dell XPS13, Windows 10, i7, 16GB Ram, saving to local SSD, happens a lot after I've moved an image. Go to save and Publisher just hangs. The save issueseems to be tied to the anchoring of images with text and moving them.
Also Publisher suddenly quits when selecting blocks of text *a lot*.
It's frustrating - especially with the saving issue as I'm being forced to make a change, save, make a change, save etc and on a 170+ page book that's an issue.
FYI it's happened 12 times this morning. I love the program, I really do, but it's a bit frustrating. Happy to share a log (if there is one and someone can tell me where to locate it)