I have the same system (Galaxy Tab A, recently updated to Android 9) with the same problem. Specific messages with HTML content cause a crash, even if I don't select "show pictures."
The annoying part is, it's not consistent. Sometimes it crashes to the K-9 list of mail servers/accounts, and sometimes it crashes to the Android "desktop." For one message in particular, I was able to fully load it and show pictures... once. Since then, it always causes K-9 to crash, immediately upon opening the message. Another message crashed three times, but did not crash the next time I opened it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "K-9 Mail" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to k-9-mail+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/k-9-mail/4b672906-11f5-4906-a76a-d4f10fa68f11%40googlegroups.com.