iTunes on PC keeps freezing after I save one podcast to iPod. Have to keep restarting!

Hi. I still use a nano and haven't had any trouble connecting it to my Microsoft Surface and downloading podcasts on iTunes and saving them to my nano. Today, all of a sudden, after I do one or two things (delete a podcast, save a podcast to nano), iTunes freezes. By which I mean that the cursor does nothing when I click anywhere; nothing is clickable anymore. I have to use the task manager to close the program. Then I start it and the whole thing happens all over again. Except sometimes iTunes keeps loading for so long that I have to force it to close. Anyone else experiencing this as a new problem? And yes, I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes. No change. Thanks to anyone who can advise me!