Hmmh, yes, I fink it's the same problem as discussed already in here:
http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Techissues;action=display;num=1038776663

I wonder if there will come any patch to avoid this thing in near future or what? But anyway thanx guys for great game!!! I'll be waiting for a upgrade

This problem seems to exist in all platforms, I have Win98 ME.

I have exactly the same bug, I run UQM in Windows 98 Me..
So sad, I have been waiting this great game for so long!

But, hopefully developers can make a fix that doesn't require downloading the same 140 megs package again