okay guys,
SO something incredible happened
I found out that the application errorcode was c00000005, which means 'access violation exception.' so after a while of googling around i found this answer directing me to try to create a dump file out of the crash. i created the mentioned registry keys, downloaded ProcDump 7.0 and tried to get the dump.
after few tries with the command line i got this line working:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) SSD Toolbox\Intel SSD Toolbox.exe" & procdump.exe -ma -e 1 "Intel SSD Toolbox.exe"
...which ran the program and immediately ran the debug process so it would catch the exception and create a dump out of it.
incredibly, when i ran it the first time this way, the toolbox ran without any crashing, straight into menu, telling me it's never been run before and that there's a firmware update etc.
so i closed the application, tried it again with the command line - and no crashes again.
HOWEVER, since the third time's a charm, i ran the command one more time - but this time the application reverted to its 'default' behavior, ie. crashing with an access ciolation exception.
good news is, i've got the dump out of it and i will add the link to it here once it's uploaded (it's 150MB).
EDIT: i should also add that i removed the files "Microsoft.VC90.CRT.manifest", "msvcm90.dll", "msvcp90.dll' and "msvcr90.dll" from their default location into a temporary subfolder. I ran the SSD Toolbox v3.2.3.
I tried running the command combo again and the Toolbox successfully launched again. The successful runs seem to be completely random, though, so i'm still a bit scared to run the firmware upgrade.