Oh, you seem to have misunderstood the controlscheme, the menu buttons are directional, so you can use the arrow keys or the wasd keys to control them. They only show xbox controller buttons atm, but we're working on adding keyboard visuals for people who prefer keyboard.
Not sure about the freeze though, are you sure it was not just loading? Our game is pretty heavy on resources, and the way it manages resources is pretty primitive atm. We are working on fixing that as well, but that might take some more time unfortunately =/
EDIT: Read the README included with the game for more details on the keyboard controls.