MATLAB: MATLAB freezing right after opening on Mac OS X

mac error freezing boot r2012aMATLAB

I am trying to run MATLAB R2012a on Mac OS X 10.7.5. When clicking the icon, the splash screen appears, and after a while MATLAB opens. However, MATLAB's interface becomes completely unclickable – none of the buttons work. The only working option is "Matlab -> Quit MATLAB", which works perfectly.
When I run MATLAB through the terminal, I receive the warning described here, which seem unrelated. I noticed that when pressing Ctrl+C in the terminal, MATLAB responds by creating a new line in its command window. However, no other commands communicate.
Given this strange behavior, are there any suggestions as to what could be wrong?
Related Question