http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31334
--- Comment #6 from Dan Kegel dank@kegel.com 2012-08-25 17:21:42 CDT --- Usually it's a corrupt wineprefix.
If you can reproduce the sequence rm -rf ~/.wine install app with wine 1.2 verify it works upgrade to wine 1.4 app fails then perhaps it's a real problem we should discuss.