From Stack Overflow:

library(plyr)
n <- 15784000
g <- 1:n
split_indices(g, n) # NOTE for copy/pasters:
                    # this may result in an abort and R exit

crashes repeatably under 32- (r-devel) and 64-bit Ubuntu (2.15.2) with plyr 1.8. Haven't dug in enough yet, but maybe an integer overflow problem?

n <- 3946000 gives a milder segfault (C stack overflow) error.