I have recently compiled and ran two version of fs2_open. One version was dated (checkout using wincvs) Jan 1, 2003. I also compiled and ran another version dated Jan 6, 2003.
The first one ran perfectly well with no crashes. The second one however still crashed. This means the problem doesn't lie in bmpman.cpp (as rolling back didn't make a differene).
The problem is now almost contained. The crash is from something that was added between Jan 1 and Jan 6.
Some people, such as Goober5000 have also confirmed the problem. Is there anyone else getting the same problem?