Hmm - r56 introduced the new welcome screen. (It's a larger file just because we included more examples.)
You could try disabling it. Open regedit, and open
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Scirra\Construct2\Preferences
Right click the space on the right and select New > DWORD value. Name it HideStartPage, and set its value to 1.
Does that help?