when i tried to import the wallet above, like i said previously i notice 2 extra files in the folder that are auto created as the crash happens:
armory_XXXX_wallet.lmdb-lock
armory_XXXX_wallet.lmdb
These are watching only copies of the python wallet for the new code to run off of. You can delete these all you want, but 0.96 will recreate them on the fly if they are missing. Earlier versions don't use these files.