I’m on windows 7, 64bit, and this has happened in pretty much every daily build in the last week or so since i initially appended the entire car model and started to try to work on the scene. Every other part of the car I can delete without any issue, but this one tail light will instantly crash blender if I delete it, or hide it in the viewport, or try to render it.
Delete_and_Crash.blend (761.5 KB)
Hmmm, not causing an issue on OSX…
In the meantime, you could try appending the bits of the mesh you do want into a new file. (File => Append)
Has that bit of the mesh got any modifiers on it? Try deleting the modifiers one by one, save, then delete the mesh.
Okay, the plot thickens - if I download the file I uploaded here to my desktop and then open it from within blender, I get the crash. If I click the link and choose to open with rather than download, and navigate to blender 2.8, I can delete it fine… How strange!
Modifiers removed, still crashes.
Open new scene, append the mesh, create a new object and link the mesh to that object, same thing…
…edit mesh, select all, copy… Make new mesh, edit, delete all verts, paste from buffer, then it’s fine 
If you open blender, then open the file, you are loading the startup file first. Perhaps something in it is conflicting, but loading the file directly does not open that part it.