Very Slow Python Initialize #703

Environment

Pythonnet version: 2.3.0
Python version: Python 3.5 (conda environment)
Operating System: Windows 10 64bit
VS 2017

Details

Hi guys, thanks for the great work building a super useful library. One question, and this could be expected behavior, I'm not sure. When I initialize the python interpreter on the .Net side, with this call:

using (Py.GIL()) {

I've timed it and it takes about 2 mins to complete the call. Further calls to grab python lock return immediately. I've also noticed that in visual studio my output window I see thousands of messages of this form:

Exception thrown at 0x00007FFE37F73C58 in RSUser.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: EEFileLoadException at memory location 0x000000314CBFB8F0.
Exception thrown at 0x00007FFE37F73C58 in RSUser.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: [rethrow] at memory location 0x0000000000000000.
Exception thrown at 0x00007FFE37F73C58 in RSUser.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: EEFileLoadException at memory location 0x000000314CBFB8F0.
Exception thrown: 'System.IO.FileNotFoundException' in mscorlib.dll
Exception thrown at 0x00007FFE37F73C58 in RSUser.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: EEFileLoadException at memory location 0x000000314CBFB8F0.
Exception thrown at 0x00007FFE37F73C58 in RSUser.exe: Microsoft C++ exception: [rethrow] at memory location 0x0000000000000000.