I am glad that you solve your problem by yourself.
We have a graceful error handing, but this case is not a error handing, we allowed user inputs the wrong path and load actually file at StreamLoading event of ShapeFileFeatureSource. I think we may update our API document to make it better user experience.
You OS must be x64, to make quick starter kit better, I think we could create another page to guide the user who is using x64 OS.