LAA, for the criminal, your computer is a tool, no different than the vise on your workbench. Once he gains access to it, he can use it to do whatever it is he wants to do. Getting malware installed on your PC is merely a means to an end. He might use your PC to send spam. He might use it to launch a denial of service attack on somebody he doesn't like. Or maybe he'll install some nuisance program that pops up asking you to pay him money to remove it. The possibilities are limited only by the criminal's imagination.
The most dangerous malware of which I'm aware is the keystroke loggers. This is a program which sits quietly on your computer capturing every character you type. If you happen to log into to your bank's online checking, he will own your account information and can use it to clean out your account. This is not a hypothetical threat; millions of dollars have been lost by big financial institutions due to keyloggers. You could have a keystroke logger running on your PC right now and not know it.
Why Windows? Two reasons: it's the most common desktop operating system, and is typically the easiest to crack. Linux and Macintosh systems are less common; combined with the difficulty in breaking into them it makes sense for the criminals to focus on Windows. That's not to say Linux and Mac machines are 100 percent safe, but they're a couple of orders of magnitude safer than the typical Windows PC.
The safest possible system is a PC running Linux booted from a "live" CD. Since the CD is read-only, infection is nearly impossible. If you want to do on-line banking from a Windows box, the safe way to do it is to boot it up with a Linux live CD.
Most popular Linux distributions such as Fedora or Ubuntu are reasonably secure. That's the second best choice security-wise after the live CD.
Macs are also reasonably secure, certainly better than Windows.
A PC running a current version of Windows with up-to-date patches and third-party can be fairly secure. If you're running an old version, such as XP, better watch out.
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