Character Builder crashes when loading characters and/or Ability Score page

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Open cbloader.exe
2. Pick a saved character and highlight Load or, in the New Character creator, 
highlight the Ability Scores tab
3. Click

What is the expected output?
My character loads or I see the Ability Scores tab

What do you see instead?
The program freezes and does nothing, forever and ever

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.3.0 on Windows 7

Please provide any additional information below.
Suddenly getting messages in the DOS window as it loads about how the device 
isn't ready, and this issue has begun even though ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has 
changed between now and last week, when I was able to use the Character Builder 
with no issues at all

Original issue reported on code.google.com by jthomas0...@gmail.com on 24 Nov 2014 at 4:49