I definitely hear my friends using the word "crush". It is a tendency widely spread among young people.
Funny enough, I remember talking to one of my friends once about "the times before we started using the word crush"... For a moment there, we went like "wait a sec... What was it again?" then we realized we didn't actually used a particular word, but expressions. The ones like "to gostando de X", "to afim de Y"... The closest to a word similar to crush that comes to my mind know is "paixonite", but then again, I can't imagine anyone using it in a conversation these days.
I found all this kind of interesting haha [emoji]