We stopped formally supporting ARM devices with < 1GB RAM with LE10 as our feeling was the codebase using the newer video pipeline has outgrown 512MB devices and 1GB was the minimum needed for a good user experience. There's been no attempt to actively prevent installs on 512MB devices and stats show some LE10 users have been using it, but it sounds like things finally tipped over the edge.
The issue is likely to be RAM footprint. You can save memory in a custom image rebuilding the kernel with fewer things enabled (and more use of =m than =y) and disabling services that might not be required; WiFi, BT, Samba, etc. and perhaps experimenting with ZRAM (there's a Pull Requst for that on GitHub). All of them are marginal gains but collectively they might accumulate enough to be meaningful.
The easier option is repurposing a Model B board with 1GB RAM.