I think this is a jar version issue - taking the hint from the poster I fixed this problem for myself by downloading a later version of the vaadin jar file.
To reproduce:
Environement:
Windows 7 x64 pro
Java 7 update 71
Tomcat 7.0.70, windows service install with a modified catalina-base
IE11.
As others have suggested I think the IE11 bit is critical, the rest doesn't matter.
Follow the quick start instructions using activiti-5.21.0
Open the start URL and log in as kermit. The screen is fairly empty and if you click the Processes button you get the Internal Error and stack trace as reported.
Go to vaadin.com and download vaadin-6.8.17.jar. Replace the 6.8.8 version in webapps\activiti-explorer\WEB-INF\lib with the new one.
Restart Tomcat and the error goes away.
What I do not know, and would like advice from the Activiti team on, is whether this update is likely to give other problems. As a general principle I'm not too keen on poking around in the internals of somebody elses product like this.