Hi Clay,
First off, if you are new to X-Plane and just want to fly, I would recommend rolling back to the stable version: 11.05. You can do that by starting the installer and picking the update option. Make sure to uncheck the box to get betas. You will have to click through the overwrite file warnings a ton of times, which is why we recommend keeping 2 installs if you want to test the beta.
Another good place to look is at the preferences. Move the preferences folder (found in the Output folder) to the desktop, then restart X‑Plane and default preferences will be restored. If the default preferences do not fix your problem, you can simply replace them with the folder you moved to the desktop and restore your personalized settings.
If you can figure out what exactly causes the crash, you can file a bug report here. Make sure to fill out and send the automatic crash report form so we can look at the details of your crash.