Desktop Unusable After Update

I updated my OS to windows 10 (from windows 7) about 2 months ago. I hadn't had any issues until last night when I performed a prompted restart for a windows update. The computer restarted and was booting back up, all appeared normal. I left the room and came back a few minutes later to check on the progress, and the computer was still booting up.

Eventually it loaded all the way to the desktop, and after a long while the application icons became visible on the desktop. Application icons never became available on the task bar, and when I hovered my mouse cursor over any area of the task bar it showed the "loading circle" (as opposed to a normal mouse pointer). I can't open any applications, and will get a message along the lines of 'Application is not responding. Do you want to wait for the application?'. I've tried a simple restart, but get back to the exact same place.