I'm not able to replicate this error, so this is (almost certainly) a conflict with some other mod. You can probably work around this by disabling PSAC (Planetary Shield: Access Control), creating a new game, and only enabling PSAC once the game has been created.
(That is, if I'm interpreting your description of where the error occurs correctly? It sounds like you're seeing a crash when trying to start a new game?)
You can find starsector.log in the logs folder, inside the application folder. The logs folder should be right next to the mods folder.
If this continues to cause problems for you, I will need more details on the error (which should be in the log file), and/or, a minimal list of mods and steps necessary to replicate the issue.