I think I might be responsible for breaking the game in the first place by replacing my DATA.ZIP as per a thread in the mod forum.
After this happened I uninstalled, cleaned the registry (I tried not to be over aggressive nuking Stardock keys) and deleted the game preferences directory. I reinstalled, am patched to 1.06 and it still happens 
I have no mods installed at all, so I'm at a bit of a loss.
Here's my error file.
