IE hang/taskbar properties

Here is one I haven’t seen before and I’m a little stumped on how to proceed. The client had an issue with IE hanging up randomly but often. The client has discovered the following workaround when IE hangs. She right clicks the taskbar and selects properties. When the taskbar properties screen opens, she just clicks ok to close it. As soon as it closes, IE immediately loads whatever page it was hung up loading.

I’ve performed a clean OS install but the problem persists. I’m not sure where to look next or why bringing up the taskbar properties would get ie to start responding. Any ideas?