So I am just playing and it is fine for about 5 turns, no freezing or anything then when I try to design a new ship, or look at a planet surface etc. etc., it just freezes. I have to wait anywhere between 15 seconds to 2 minutes for it to unfreeze, only for it to freeze again for the same period of time again, until I either leave that particular screen (doing it fast or it will freeze up again) or restart the game which does not help at all. Anyone idea what could be wrong? Do I just need a new computer? It is 3 years old after all.

Computer Specs:

2.4 GHZ Pentium 4
1024 ram
Nvidia Geforce 5900 graphics card
Windows XP OP

Any help would be appericated.