The issue seems to be a Windows 10 replica of: https://itch.io/t/1389538/stuck-on-starting-up-macos
I performed an install of GMEdit-Windows.zip and later GMEdit-Beta-Windows.zip with the same outcome: the program is stuck in the "stating up..." state. Bringing up the dev console shows no errors.
This machine previously had GMEdit-Beta-Windows (compiled at Dec 19, 2020) installed. That version ran without issue.
Any thoughts on what's going wrong?