Mike, that won't work as Alan is using a version of Movie Studio (the .vf file extension is the clue here).
Alan, then number of edits shouldn't make any difference to the load time.
Do you have a lot of (digital) stills in the project?
If so, are they large (over 2000 x 2000) or small (under 1000 x 1000)?
If it's the former, use something like
IrfanView to batch resize them.
Save them in PNG format at the same time as Vegsa prefers this format for images.