Scripting

I have a mysql DB that has just over 10k records across two tables with some fields being encrypted.  The server is virtual, 4GB of RAM and 1 CPU.  I need to export the records so they can be imported into another system.   I have a query I want to execute and sort by when the record was created.  When I tried to do this the CPU spiked to 100% utilization for several minutes and I eventually killed the query; I did have the query limited to just return 20 results.  

Is there a better way to get the data out; e.g. should I export the database?  Will that be just a CPU intensive?