I'd sometimes get a crash when I returned to my ship from a derelict or distressed ship to my own I've loved the Dev Diary series so far, and look forward to its continuation.
I think, for me at least, I need the story in place before I can really settle into the primary loop as intended. I do think the mechanics of the game work well, even if I'm not sure it'll ultimately be a game for me. The good news is that I haven't experienced any crash bugs or frame rate issues, and my laptop is extremely ancient so that's saying something. I don't think it would hurt the work-a-day vibe to just be able to get around quicker it'd make me feel more inclined to actually explore.
I think my main criticism however is movement speed of your character walking around planets or trying to patch up 900 hull breaches around your ship is like pulling teeth. I also never seemed to be able to reliably close the PDA without button mashing. I also found setting destinations and switching to the banking controls annoying when mouse and keyboard controls seemed to trip over each other in the menus. Gameplay-wise, I didn't like the default keyboard/mouse controls very much, and having to remember to hold the space bar to leave the ship was frustrating. Obviously though, I understand why they wouldn't be in a preliminary story-less build. I think this is primarily because the planets feel same-y, barren and unpopulated whether they're inhabited or not hopefully this is something that will change once the full build with the story is done, because some background NPCs would really make a difference. I've tried a couple of versions of the demo now, including 0.1.9, and to be honest, I struggle to get into it.