Batik 1.8 - Squiggle hangs when loading

Dear All,

while Squiggle 1.7 starts almost instantly, in 1.8 it hangs when progress
bar in splash screen is about 60 %. The only way to stop the process is via
Task Manager (Win10 64bit).

I have no idea what is going on, moreover there are no error messages
printed when running that jar from console (I usually start jars via
double-click).

I am using Batik 1.8 binary distribution.

Jan