I don't know if this will be helpful to anyone...
I downloaded the mod that works with the patch- installed- moved it to my desktop- rebooted the pc- reinstalled the awesomemod- then downloaded the scriptenabler and installed it- moved it to desktop- rebooted- reinstalled.
Now it's working fine. There is no rhyme or reason to this. It is just that the start-up crash thing is so random I figured if I did random crap to my computer/game it might "fix" itself.
So far so good. All I can say is- wash,rinse,repeat and pray it works.