I had the same problem and found a fix, and maybe the root cause.
Fix:
Go to your Sketchup installation folder. On my machine it is C:\Program Files\SketchUp\SketchUp 2015
Search for “thumb” → I got 2 files, both named “ThumbsUp.dll”
Rename both files to “ThumbsUp2.dll2” (or some other name and extension so they are invisible to the OS).
No Sketchup thumbnails, but also no crashes.
Root Cause (?):
It happens on two of my machines, both with NVidia Quadro cards. Another Quadro user had this problem here:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/sketchup/J2gz1P3rwu0
Quadro cards are somewhat unusual (for CAD workstations) – my guess is the ThumbsUp.dll hasn’t been config’d to work with them – yet. Hopefully someone in charge can fix it.