We give a crystal structure on the set of Gelfand-Tsetlin patterns which parametrize bases for finite-dimensional irreducible representations of the general linear Lie algebra. The crystal data are given in closed form, expressed using tropical polynomial functions of the entries of the patterns. We prove that with this crystal structure, the natural bijection between Gelfand-Tsetlin patterns and semistandard Young tableaux is a crystal isomorphism.