Does anyone else experience crashes and hangs when configuring file-based backups?

After only a few days of using the product, my overall impressions are already somewhat unfavorable, as the product quality does not really inspire confidence that it will ever work when the chips are down (application crashes and hangs; inordinate amount of time for the UI even to appear after launching; much slower-than-expected disk-image backups for software that does not use VSS).

File-based backups seem particularly susceptible to crashes and hangs before they can even be configured to run.

The system is Windows 7 SP1 x64 and the backup location is a physically-connected external drive.

Here is a random sampling from the Windows application event logs:

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 12/31/2011 1:18:57 PM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: wrkosch
Description:
Faulting application name: TrueImage.exe, version: 15.0.0.6154, time stamp: 0x4eeb23e1
Faulting module name: TrueImage.exe, version: 15.0.0.6154, time stamp: 0x4eeb23e1
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00560daa
Faulting process id: 0x2158
Faulting application start time: 0x01ccc8014e290c46
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImage.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImage.exe
Report Id: 0c2ffffd-33f5-11e1-94ee-005056c00008

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Hang
Date: 12/30/2011 3:33:20 AM
Event ID: 1002
Task Category: (101)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: wrkosch
Description:
The program TrueImage.exe version 15.0.0.6131 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.
Process ID: 1924
Start Time: 01ccc6e40413e3a5
Termination Time: 5
Application Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImage.exe
Report Id: fed3b5f6-32d9-11e1-a3ca-005056c00008

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 12/28/2011 9:29:39 PM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: wrkosch
Description:
Faulting application name: TrueImage.exe, version: 15.0.0.6131, time stamp: 0x4ebb4ea7
Faulting module name: TrueImage.exe, version: 15.0.0.6131, time stamp: 0x4ebb4ea7
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000f0a43
Faulting process id: 0x1de0
Faulting application start time: 0x01ccc5e95cc0feaa
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImage.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImage.exe
Report Id: 19f79528-31de-11e1-b74e-005056c00008