I was experiencing this problem with 3.12.
Just upgraded to 4.0 and started up several QBs with US/mixed forces/auto purchase.
No crashes so far—everything seems to be working fine.
Now to begin developing trust with the new 'hull down' command...
Vein's sounds mod changes the loading bar to the ammo box.
The individual files in question are:
load progress bar dim.bmp
load progress screen red bar.bmp
Took me a while to find after a reinstall as well! Didn't think I'd miss it so much