I got it working, not sure of the reason why just yet.
I moved Demul to the root of my d: drive instead of in "d:/arcade/emulators" where I typically keep all of my emulators, and it works just fine. I have reviewed file permissions between those locations and they are all identical. I have to imagine its a permissions issue somewhere but I can't see where.
Anyway it works for now, Demul just can't hang in the Emulators directory with the rest of my emulators. If I figure out the source of the issue I will update this thread in case others experience something similar.
Thank you for your time and help Retro808.