CiviCRM Import Hangs on Step 1 (Fails to progress to step 2)

I am running CiviCRM 1.4 on a fresh Druapl 4.7.2 install. I notice strange behaviours with the Import function which has effectively stalled our efforts at launching CiviCRM as our primary CRM.

I am exporting user information from Excel 2003 in *.csv format. When i upload the file (which is small, less than 500 kb), I am simply cycled back to the step 1 page with no error message.

If i try importing a data-dump from CiviCRM, however, the import proceedes to step 2 with no problems.

Any ideas/recommendations are deeply appreciated.