diff --git a/lib/communicator/SharedMemoryMPI.cc b/lib/communicator/SharedMemoryMPI.cc
index 9e5d8f15..45edbb07 100644
--- a/lib/communicator/SharedMemoryMPI.cc
+++ b/lib/communicator/SharedMemoryMPI.cc
@@ -401,7 +401,10 @@ void *SharedMemory::ShmBufferTranslate(int rank,void * local_p)
 }
 SharedMemory::~SharedMemory()
 {
-  MPI_Comm_free(&ShmComm);
+  int MPI_is_finalised;  MPI_Finalized(&MPI_is_finalised);
+  if ( !MPI_is_finalised ) { 
+    MPI_Comm_free(&ShmComm);
+  }
 };
 
 }