I experience the same problem too.

I figure out this might be related to the language / locale you're using. I've been using Chinese (Hong Kong) (zhhk) and Ovi Maps takes forever to load. Once I switch my Device Language back to English (US) (en-US), I'm able to launch Ovi Maps again.

I am pretty sure that I could launch Ovi Maps in the 42.1 firmware with the Chinese locale. I'm not sure if this is a new bug for the PR1.1 firmware.