Junk folder will not open and causes Windows Live Mail to freeze

I have been using Windows Live Mail for my Outlook account. As  of today the programme has closed itself automatically a couple of times. I also can't access the Junk folder. When I click on it nothing happens, and then the whole programme freezes and nothing I click on will respond. I have to close the whole thing down. I want to check that emails haven't mistakenly gone to my Junk file. It says I have 8 emails in it, but obviously I don't know what they are. If I access my Outlook account separately on the internet, there is only 1 email in Junk, so this doesn't answer my question. My laptop did install some updates yesterday so I was wondering if that might be the problem?