Hi,

the problem has been found, fixed and hopefully the new version will be available soon.

There is no need to reinstall the whole game. If the game hangs and closes on startup the application is actually still running in the background (even though the window closes) and needs to be terminated completely. To get the game running again do the following in the terminal:
Deleting the configuration file will return the default volume levels.

Luckily there is a workaround until the new version is available.
The problem occurs if the audio has been completely disabled when quitting the game and the game is later run again. If you want to play without sound, set the volume level so low it is not audible but not completely disabled either. So for example set the music volume to zero but leave a few pixels in the sound fx bar

EDIT: some clarifications