The problem seems to have to do something with how systray2 (ancient tray module) removes the task manager icon from the tray. You can verify this by quitting Litestep, opening the task manager, and restarting Litestep. You'll notice, in that situation, the icon isn't in the tray (that seems to be a bug across all Litestep tray modules - even xTray. so a core issue?). Closing the task manager in this case doesn't cause the error. Opening the task manager while Litestep is running... icon shows up... close the task manager... dead Litestep. That error doesn't happen in xTray (newest tray module).

Find a registry hack or something to make the task manager not create the tray icon in the first place seems to be the only fix, unless you really want to dig in and replace that old tray module. (Or you can just go in the traybox.box file, and comment out the line that starts *WharfModule, but you'll have no tray.)