clean install and trying to run demo fails

[talkingtab]

git clone etc
npm i
npm run i:demo
npm start

produces an error:

Module parse failed: /other/clones/rh5/dist/styles.css Unexpected token (1:0)
You may need an appropriate loader to handle this file type.
SyntaxError: Unexpected token (1:0)
at Parser.pp$4.raise (/other/clones/rh5/node_modules/webpack/node_modules/acorn/dist/acorn.js:2221:15)
... more lines

Any ideas? I'm just looking for a clean example to get running. Thanks!