This happens on other image-dired thumbnail generation commands as well.

In GNU Emacs 26.0.90 (build 1, i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.24)
 of 2017-10-13 built on lambda
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11904000
System Description:    Debian GNU/Linux unstable (sid)

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Making completion list...

Configured using:
 'configure 'CFLAGS=-march=native -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector-strong'
 --prefix=/home/drot/.local
 '--program-transform-name=s/^ctags$/ctags.emacs/''

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG IMAGEMAGICK SOUND GPM DBUS GSETTINGS NOTIFY
ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 LIBSYSTEMD LCMS2

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.utf8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny seq byte-opt gv
bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib dired dired-loaddefs
format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg
epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047
rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils elec-pair time-date
mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar
dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment
text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar
rfn-eshadow isearch timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock
syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european
ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop
case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer
cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files
text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule
custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote dbusbind inotify lcms2
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 8 94646 7703)
 (symbols 24 20332 1)
 (miscs 20 46 160)
 (strings 16 28171 1628)
 (string-bytes 1 742122)
 (vectors 8 13956)
 (vector-slots 4 498246 10266)
 (floats 8 50 67)
 (intervals 28 265 12)
 (buffers 528 12))