Back in beta 1, I used to get the black screen crash fairly regularly (I'm running XP SP3 32 bit). Anyway, I tried a variety of fixes and one of them could have worked as I don't seem to get the crash anymore so in case they're of any use here's what I did:
- Tried reinstalling MC (this didn't seem to have any effect on black screen frequency)
- Tried reinstalling Java (this didn't seem to have any effect either)
- As seattle and static have already suggested, I changed my draw distance from far to normal
- I changed my graphics from fancy to fast (I've since changed back to fancy with no issues)
- Tried running minecraft in compatibility mode for XP SP2 (as you're on vista this probably isn't any use)
- For a while every time Minecraft started I would immediately use task manager to set the priority of javaw.exe to high (its important not to set it to real time!)
Anyway hope this helps, as someone with experience of the black screen myself I can understand how annoying it is.