It's serial. When someone leaves in their camera, USB card reader or other doodad, it messes up the boot order. I'm thinking this isn't the case here, but it's always good to check
If the machine made it past POST, boot sector, and startup, it has mostly loaded the OS by the time it gets to the fonts. The system has been thoroughly exercised at this point.
He says this is the third time this year: spyware picked up in admin mode.
*Could* be spyware. But if it hangs loading the same font it could very well be a bad sector on the drive.
Also, I don't see this as it, but always check the easiest stuff first, even if it is less likely. That is, check the ribbon cable to the HD and reseat it. It know of several instances where that fixed what was thought to be a HD failure.