Hi there,
I don't mean to blame someone or to start pointing out to any specific direction, but AFAIK, Maxon have made some changes regarding C4D loading stuff (plugins, assets, etc.)
As some of you already mentioned, if you remove the previously saved location paths, C4D will work faster.
Perhaps you can optimize the use of location paths (in case you have lots of them) and reduce them to only a few of them, just trying to speed things up.
OTOH, have you had the opportunity to test the latest RC1 build?
I've been trying to reproduce this, but haven't been lucky enough reproducing the issue: however, I don't have lots of location paths saved in the C4D preferences.
I'll continue testing this trying to reproduce the issue.
I hope this helps.
Please continue providing us with your feedback.
Kind regards.