Gnome shell crashes very often

[freek]

I run Kali Linux built on Gnome. Instead of using the standard fallback mode, I enabled the full Gnome shell so I could use extensions and themes.
The problem is that the shell crashes VERY often, always when Cairo dock is running.

The main thing is that if the shell crashes, it goes back to fallback mode and I am unable to restart it thus unable to save any of the documents
I was working with on my desktop. <ALT+F2> & r gives me an error because Kali went back to fallback mode, entering gnome-shell --replace in cli crashes my machine.
Logging out and in does not reset the shell, I have to reboot first.

So, is there any way to save my work if it happens again? Or even better, can I prevent it from happening again? It's obvious that uninstalling Cairo dock will help,
but I like it much more than the ugly standard drop down applications menu in Gnome.

I'm very new to Linux so sorry if I say things in a funny way