Can't help there unfortunately. 52k files might be the disk total, I assume that you can't access anything when Recuva crashes, and that it crashes in stage 1? (If it gets to stage 2 then cancel immediately, you will be able to access the files found.)
Yes, it crashes in stage 1. I will try it out again tonight, possibly searching for only .jpg as opposed to all picture file types, to see if I can any joy out of it.
I believe that the selection is post-scan, in other words the full scan is done and then the results are filtered to show jpg files, so you may be no better off. Give it a go anyway, there's not much to lose.