First pass crashed QGIS and corrupted the file. Luckily I made a copy per the softwares recommendation. I think part of the problem is that even though the image is only 82K pixel wide the resolution is 0.4in/px so it is very dense thus it gave me options in the Pyramid menu for 40k and 20k. I went down to 5k and it appears to have worked, but still takes at least 3 minutes to render with each zoom action.
I can create pyramids at multiple levels correct?