I can't address the bug you are describing. Hopefully someone else can reproduce it. I'm responding to something specific below....
So this is how this is supposed to function? I can't select and album then decide if I want it shuffled or not before starting to play it?
I find "shuffle mode" in almost every player I've ever tried to be confusing and often inconsistent. So I never use them, except on dedicated hardware players.
Luckily, MC has numerous ways of doing shuffling WITHOUT EVER TURNING ON SHUFFLE MODE!
As an example to answer your question above:
Click on an album to select it. Right click. Select More Play Options > Play (shuffled). Voila'. The album is added to Playing Now in a random order. You can also shuffle Playing Now any time you want. For example, add 2, 3, 4, or more albums to Playing Now. They will appear in order. Now select Player > Shuffle > Reshuffle. Now all the tracks you just added are mixed together in a random order in Playing Now.
What if you've been listening for a while, you're on track 30 of 100, and you want to add in *another* album and shuffle it into the mix? Add the new album to Playing Now. It willl appear in order at the end of the list. Now select Player > Shuffle > Reshuffle Remaining. That shuffles all of the tracks below the one you are listening to, but doesn't mix the ones you already listened to! Brilliant.
Reshuffle and Reshuffle Remaining have keyboard shortcuts too so it's fast and easy: Control-R and Control-Shift-R respectively.
Playing Now is amazingly well done and it's ability to be shuffled on the fly like this is something I use extensively.
Brian.