I was having a similar problem except the dialogue box said “Last log message was: <140735076113440>”.
Trash your presets by going into (on a Mac):
Users > (WHOEVER YOU ARE) > Library > Preferences > Adobe > After Effects > 10.0
I trashed the “10.0” folder and it restarted. I haven’t used it, but it opened an old file without a problem.
Good luck.