Hi Michaela
I understand that you are trying to use the deployed matlab.m file as a DLL method.However it keeps on crashing at the initialization line
I would suggest you to use
const char *args[] = {"-nojvm"};
const int count = sizeof(args) / sizeof(args[0]);
mclInitializeApplication(args, count))
instead of
mclInitializeApplication(NULL,0)
If the problem still persists try using a different matlab or visual studio version as there might be matlab and visual studio mismatch.