Hi catseye,
If the problem were inherent to Word, far more people would have been complaining before now. The fact you're having such an unusual problem after what's essentially a fresh install is strongly suggesting of either a hardware fault or a software conflict.
The fact that some of your other software 'is extremely intensive on RAM and just about every other piece of hardware' doesn't invalidate what I said. It's not the amount of RAM that's being used - it's how that RAM is being used. If Word stores code in an area that another program stores data, the same errors wouldn't be expected. the same applies to other hardware. Despite Word seemingly making rather pedestrian demands on video displays, that is one of the most common areas that driver/hardware inadequacies manifest; the other is with printers. I doubt either of those is the issue in this case, however.
If you want to run some diagnostics, goto: Control Panel > System and Security > Check the Windows Exerience Index > Advanced Tools > Generate a System Health Report. See also:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...tics-tool.html