System Preferences Hang-up

Hi,
I am having a problem with System Preferences freezing up when selecting Desktop & Screen Saver. Everything else on the system works fine.
I loaded a picture on the Macintosh HD Device (all other pictures are under a specific user account) to access it as a desktop background. The correct picture appears as the desktop background, but I want to change the picture. As soon as I select Desktop & Screen Saver under System Preferences the window freezes.
The only way to unfreeze is to select something else on the Dock (which doesn't magnify as it normally does), then close that and go to back to System Preference and then close it. Or select something else from the dock and then Force Quit the Systems Preferences.
I will get an error message and the problem details (which I know VERY little about) show an Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGSEGV) and
Exception Code: KERNINVALIDADDRESS
If that helps.
I tried sending the picture to the trash and then reloading it, but that didn't help either.
Any ideas on how to get back the the default or fix this problem are greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Message was edited by: PGmeyer

Here is the fix that was suggested on another board and fixed the problem.
remove the followinf files and restart you mac
Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
That should at least reset the system preferences to default
For the desktop/screensaver remove
Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
After a restart all should be back to default settings.

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