Hi Aaron,
That is a lot of columns and do you really need that many in one report?
Another options is in the connection itself, see if unchecking everything except Tables helps:
And if that fails then try adding just your one table in the Table Name Like filter.
CR will load all table info and it has limited resources, closing all other programs may help also so it frees up resources as well.
Also, uncheck Automatic Smart Linking, that can use up resources too.
Otherwise as you noted breaking the table up using Views is your work around.
Don