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Turns out that it was the shutdown delay. I had mine set at 20,000 so I could synchronize, via wireless lan, with the unit still in the car. 2.0b3 and higher writes that as 20,000,000 (milliseconds) to the player .ini file. Whats the bet that when the ignition is switched off, the player reads the value from the file, does an atol on it and ....shits itself.
You can test that theory by installing a Hijack kernel (totally unrelated to your problem), and using the "Force DC/Car Mode" option to test it in the house with a serial cable connected. If something is puking, there may be messages spat out the serial link.
You'll also need to edit config.ini to get the serial port back to the right speed (115200) first, since car mode switches it to 4800..
-ml