How do I stop System Preferences from carrying out an operation?

I was in the middle of deleting a user, saving the disk image in the Deleted Users folder. I deleted the Deleted Users folder and I tried to stop System Preferences from doing the deletion but I couldn't.
The reason why I want to stop the procedure is because it was taking too long. Also the disk image seemed to be taking up too much space. I was worried it would fill up my hard drive. And I don't need the disk image anyway. I just want to delete the user without saving a disk image.
So I tried to stop the process by doing what I did above. But I am afraid it might have hung up System Preferences as I removed the file that it was saving the disk image to. I emptied the trash and the file is no longer there.
What should I do?
When I go to System Preferences, I see this:
Have I made System Preferences frozen in some sort of perpetual loop that it can't save the disk image to the site where it's supposed to save it to and so it can't stop saving?

I think I fixed it. I force-quit System Preferences (I force-quit Disk Utility before I tried this because I thought DU was the one making the disk image) and now System Preferences closes. When I opened it to look at the Users the user that I was trying to delete and save a disk image of is still there. I guess that's expected as I didn't finish the deletion process.
I suppose the next step is to delete that user but choose the third option that comes up, the one that says delete without saving a disk image.

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