Didn't crash with a skin called "electrix" when it was renamed to "default" to replace the default skin(program still crashed when trying to load the skin with conventional method), but program was slow and not very responsive although the skin showed up, then I tried Win VLC 11 ...
You can select skin file you want to use from QT4 preferences. Does it work any better if you enable skins interface from QT4 GUI? (I assume you enable it using some other way) No, if i select a skin from the preference the player doesn't crash right away but the skin doesn't show up, and then the ...
skins2 works OK in here. Does resetting VLC settings help?
Yes, it's able to start after a complete reset or setting the skin to Qt, but won't start at all when set to skinnable. Don't even have time to choose a skin, crash on startup.