If you check starsector.log, it should have a stack trace which might point you towards the cause of the current crash, at least; not necessarily the overall culprit.
This seems to be the relevant portion of the log:
124714 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain - java.io.FileNotFoundException: ..\saves\common\foo.txt.data (The system cannot find the path specified)
java.io.FileNotFoundException: ..\saves\common\foo.txt.data (The system cannot find the path specified)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(Unknown Source)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.LoadingUtils.Ó00000(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.settings.StarfarerSettings$1.writeTextFileToCommon(Unknown Source)
at com.github.isturdy.automaticorders.AutomaticOrders.onApplicationLoad(AutomaticOrders.kt:46)
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.ResourceLoaderState.init(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.state.AppDriver.begin(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain.main(Unknown Source)
at com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
The contents of the saves/common folder from an install where the launch is slow could also be helpful in figuring out the issue. Nothing else in the saves/ folder could conceivably have any impact on application loading times.
Considering I wiped both the actual save games and the data in the missions folder to no effect, that definitely appears to be the case. Here is the saves/common folder that was (seemingly) causing the trouble:
https://ufile.io/sm852d08