http://groups.google.com/groups?num=20&q=ie8%20tabs%20load&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wgSome people have gotten relief by disabling a Java addon called "SSV Helper", but it doesn't seem to work for everybody.
There's a guy, a propellerhead from the Sysinternals forum, who went at it with analysis tools and discovered the trouble was... cookies. He deleted his cookies and all was well. Maybe it'll work for you:
http://dmoisan.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!95CB015E3E4A702A!1089.entryIn the meantime, if you don't get it fixed, try pressing ESC on a stuck tab, then F5. Stop-and-refresh should save you the trouble of having to copy/paste the URL.