To reproduce: 
1.Set the GridView template's ViewDefinition to ColumnGroups
2.Add a new column
3.Delete the column
4.Add another new column. The PropertyBuilder closes and it is not possible to open the Smart Tag of RadGridView anymore. Please refer to the attached gif file.

Workaround:
The issue is caused by a remaining reference to a deleted column. When using the RadGridView PropertyBuilder and a column is added to ColumnGroupsViewDefinition, once the column is deleted from RadGridView (via the Property Builder) the code for adding the column in the ColumnGroupsViewDefinition remains, and this causes further designer instability with the Property Builder.

To handle this scenario there are two options:
1. When a column is deleted via Property Builder, and this column was part of ColumnGroupsViewDefinition, open the Designer.cs/vb file, locate the line that adds this column to a ColumnNames collection and delete it. It should be something like:
gridViewColumnGroupRow3.ColumnNames.Add("column1"); - where "column1" is the name of the deleted column

2. Instead of using the Property Builder to build the ColumnGroupsViewDefinition, build it programmatically.