I have actually had this happen, as well.
For me though, it's any Research/Black Market pages, etc. It tends to only happen during the FIRST opening of a page or tab on said page (ie: the different research tabs on the research page, or the opening of the Black Market or Diplomacy pages). Once opened, it tends to not occur for me for the rest of the game (failing that, it never lasts more than the first 10-20 minutes of a game).
It's happened for me on all versions of the game since 1.02, and for some reason tends to be the most pronounced on randomly generated small maps (odd, I know, but it's what I have observed).
I always figured it was just the game loading something poorly, or my computer being a pain in the ass - it never occured to me that it could be a glitch, lol!
Uhm, the computer is on the lowish end of things:
2.8ghz p4.
1 gig of RAM (not positive on the type atm).
256 MB Geforce 7800 GS/OC (AGP).
80 gig HD w/ ~35 gigs of free space.
Defragged on a regular basis.
Runs on Windows XP.
I run the game at 1280x1024 resolution, most of the effects are turned on, the textures are a mixture of Highest and Medium for the most part... Game otherwise runs smooth as butter until massive fleets come into play, and then I just have to turn off the Bloom (makes me cry a little, every time), oh, and debris is disabled (that one fubar's the game for me more than any other effect!).
If you guys think of any futher info you could use, lemme know.
-Itharus