For me, it's very reproducible, it's every single time I try doing anything, the slightest little thing can trigger it. When the growth is triggered, it continues on by itself and doesn't stop until it either crash or it gets restarted to avoid the crash.
The only way I found to prevent it, is to hide it as soon as it's started, and basically leave it there without touching it much. I've occasionally brought it up and hid it again, and as long as I only bring it up without touching anything and hide it, it usually stays fine.
There are many other programs using java out there, I don't know of any that cause this.
It's very unstable that way and not really usable for any extended periods of time.