This looks like bug #35229 - and all workarounds on that page work for me. It would explain why a reboot helped - you freed up memory so that allocating memory for the totem logo worked.
-- totem won't start with totem-xine engine https://launchpad.net/bugs/32401 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
