Two updates:
1) Just in case this might give someone a hint to the cause of the 10 second delay...
The output path for the backed up files is to a second internal drive that spins down when there is no activity to it.
So, this obviously would be the cause for the startup delay, but the problem is, if I run the app a second time right away (with the drive already spun up), there is stil the 10-15 second delay.
2) Since the crashing is in the uxtheme.dll, I'm thinking it has something to do with the way you are skinning the app's UI - so how can I disable your app from using any skinning API's because this might stop the crashing. It's weird that the crashing only happens *after* the backup completes successfully.
Any help would be appreciated.