Iphone messages keep crashing?

So I was texting my friend and he sent me a message with what I believe to be nothing but rows and rows of periods. "................" This kind of thing. When I try to open my messages now the screen opens blank and then closes after about 10 seconds. I cannot get into my messages. I tried shutting off my phone, holding the sleep and home buttons and closing all running apps on my phone. Nothing will work. Is this a problem with my phone being too slow to load the massive text message or is it just my provider?