Did you check if there is no other instance as zombie in memory ?
I check yesterday the Windows port and i see this problem : At shutdown, DK still buzy in a thread and don't close well the instance.
Start a new one in this condition crash at startup.
Just open the Windows task manager, select digikam.exe, and kill it. Just after start the new instance.
Can you confirm this behavior ?
Note : About to have crash report under windows, i must backport the DrMonGW wrapper from Krita implementation to provide the same behavior under Linux : a dialog with the crash trace.
Giles Caulier