Hi, thanks for letting me know about this,
I tried replacing the shortcut/link with a general batch file which runs the exe from the root directory so you can try redownloading and running that to see if it works. I tried it on another windows computer (Win. 10) and it seems to run okay there.
The second problem I think is also related to this - I suspect the runtime issue has something to do with the program not being able to locate the correct resources. Running the program from the root directory allows it to locate all the resources in 'res', which is partly the reason I created a shortcut/batch file (alternatively, you can try moving everything in "build\exectuables\" to the main directory, and running the exe from there). If the problem persists let me know and I'll try looking into it more.
Hope this helps!