Today when I woke up and checked my rig I found out that Miner control had crashed, but the miner was still running...
You're not alone, happens to me also

Crashes on windows XP and on 8.1 occasionally.
When I get back I'm going to wrap the whole kill/start cycle in a try/catch. Something is getting fouled up out there in a place I haven't seen before. Also plan to add some error logging in so there will be something to diagnose with.