I tried it as well, here is what happened. I changed my UI test character's filename, since I use a different UI for default. So essentially the character that would be using THIS UI didn't have a UI settings file. The game went through the normal introduction screen, and froze up at what would say "Loading entity resources". I then tried it on another charcter who already had an existing UI settings file for another UI, and it did the same. So it seems that whether the character has a uisettings file or not, doesn't make a difference and it freezes in the same place everytime. Hope this helps in some way. Looking great though, hope you get it sorted.
