Question about GIMP brushes

mding

I tried to install ALL my brushes I bought here and at the other store, but GIMP simply crashed when started. So I though maybe a certain brush is the problem, and created 5 folders for the brushes. Two of these did make GIMP crash, but the other three were ok, but when I wanted to start GIMP with those three "ok" brush packs, GIMP crashed again. So my question: Is there a limit in size for GIMP brushes? I would have expected for GIMP to slow down, when I use a lot of them, but to crash - doesn't Gimp use sth. like a HD Drive "swap" RAM extension if there isn't enough memory left? I have only 16GB Memory RAM. Many thanks for any help!