I have managed to extract the following:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
desktop_entry_get_basename (entry=0x1f) at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/desktop-entries.c:607
607	  if (entry->categories != NULL)
(gdb) bt
#0  desktop_entry_get_basename (entry=0x1f) at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/desktop-entries.c:607
#1  0x00007ffff51df9b1 in find_entry (list=<value optimised out>, relative_path=0x97b430 "vmware-ace-vms.directory")
    at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/entry-directories.c:166
#2  cached_dir_find_relative_path (list=<value optimised out>, relative_path=0x97b430 "vmware-ace-vms.directory")
    at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/entry-directories.c:195
#3  entry_directory_get_directory (list=<value optimised out>, relative_path=0x97b430 "vmware-ace-vms.directory")
    at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/entry-directories.c:821
#4  entry_directory_list_get_directory (list=<value optimised out>, relative_path=0x97b430 "vmware-ace-vms.directory")
    at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/entry-directories.c:1125
#5  0x00007ffff51e2b2b in process_layout (tree=0x813560, parent=<value optimised out>, layout=<value optimised out>, 
    allocated=<value optimised out>) at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/gmenu-tree.c:3409
#6  0x00007ffff51e2feb in process_layout (tree=0x813560, parent=<value optimised out>, layout=<value optimised out>, 
    allocated=<value optimised out>) at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/gmenu-tree.c:3320
#7  0x00007ffff51e5972 in gmenu_tree_build_from_layout (tree=0x813560)
    at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/gmenu-tree.c:4465
#8  gmenu_tree_get_root_directory (tree=0x813560) at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/gmenu-tree.c:782
#9  0x00007ffff51e5b75 in gmenu_tree_get_directory_from_path (tree=0x1f, path=0x99fd40 "vmware-ace-vms.directory")
    at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/gmenu-tree.c:860
#10 0x00000000004409c5 in submenu_to_display (menu=0x6f1330) at menu.c:1300
#11 0x0000000000440a3b in submenu_to_display_in_idle (data=<value optimised out>) at menu.c:1327
#12 0x00007ffff48c6d4e in g_main_context_dispatch () from /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#13 0x00007ffff48ca718 in ?? () from /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#14 0x00007ffff48cab75 in g_main_loop_run () from /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#15 0x00007ffff68851a7 in gtk_main () from /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
#16 0x0000000000422a9f in main (argc=<value optimised out>, argv=<value optimised out>) at main.c:154
(gdb) list
602	
603	  menu_verbose ("Adding Legacy category to \"%s\"\n",
604	                entry->basename);
605	
606	  i = 0;
607	  if (entry->categories != NULL)
608	    {
609	      for (; entry->categories[i]; i++);
610	    }
611	

(gdb) frame 2
#2  cached_dir_find_relative_path (list=<value optimised out>, relative_path=0x97b430 "vmware-ace-vms.directory")
    at /build/buildd/gnome-menus-2.28.0.1/./libmenu/entry-directories.c:195
195	          break;
(gdb) list
190	            break;
191	        }
192	      else
193	        {
194	          retval = find_entry (dir, split[i]);
195	          break;
196	        }
197	
198	      ++i;
199	    }
(gdb) print split[i]
$9 = 0x99fd40 "vmware-ace-vms.directory"

/usr/share/desktop-directories/vmware-ace-vms.directory contains only these three lines:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=VMware ACE

Moving it out of the way allows gnome-panel to run successfully.