Ok... very weird. Even though I had uninstalled and reinstalled the client, it seems that the game still crashes (at the loading screen) when I try to log in with a *new* character. Is my account in general somehow screwed up?
*edit*
I tried logging in with a completely different account (nervbird [at] yahoo [dot] ca), feel free to delete that one if you have a policy against multiple accounts, I only want to use the hurleybird [at] gmail [dot] com account), and still crashed at startup. This is really messed up, I just reinstalled the game!
*Edit*
Restarting my computer fixed the problem.... strange.
[Broke up the email addresses to prevent webcrawlers picking them up. Never post your email address on a public forum because you will find yourself receiving lots of automated spam. -- Santiago]