CPU usage is quite different than memory usage.

That makes a big difference. Getting 100% memory usage would take quite a while, would mean memory allocation continues and thus swap space starts to be used, which would mean the system becomes terribly unresponsive. This does not usually happen because of a small mistake, although on the long run a small memory leak could, but that's a slow process. For high cpu usage an accidental polling loop can be enough, which can happen quite easily.
Also an application that "will not run" is different then an application which does run/start but does not respond. "will not run" is more like it doesn't start at all and though it is less vague than "doesn't work", it's still extremely vague. Please be more precise in the first place.
"nothing in the gui works" is already much more precise than "it doesn't work", but could you describe a bit more exact please what you're experiencing. "Does not work" can be any supposed misbehavior especially to a non-dev.
emgee_1 wrote:Since I prefer working under flux or openbox I now do not know if there are some extra programs that need to be started before some apps work properly
I don't know either. Did you try dbus? I can only tell you that it works here with openbox, but I don't now how your setup is different than mine. Are there any error messages?