GIMP Freezes when doing certain actions.

[tmanni]

This can be due to the small quantity of memory (2 GB of RAM to run a windows 8 is very low) : your windows should begin to use virtual memory, slowing down the whole computer.
You can observe what happens in GIMP by adding the Dashboard dock : click on the small arrow in the right part of any dockable area to open the menu, then Add Tab > Dashboard.
Observe the Memory and Swap graphs before and during the freeze.