I don't have any advice but you do have my sympathy. DD's gotten that exact same reaction from other kids many times. She went through a stage where she decided to hug all the other kids on the playground when she first met them, which REALLY freaked some of the kids out. She tends to do best with kids that are about 2-3 years older than her. She likes to copy what they are doing and they seem to like to have a little tag along that they can tell what to do.
For kids her own age, I just really make sure to pay closer attention to their interactions in case I need to step in. It doesn't help that she's very big for her age (93rd+ percentile in everything) so she treats kids her own age more like dolls than real people (yes, we're working on that!).
I can say, though, from experience that it is possible to get past it. We were visiting a friend of mine who has a 2.5 year old (DD is 1) and he was absolutely scared to death of DD the first day we were there. She was clueless and kept trying to hug him and followed him around everywhere he went. However, after a day of that he decided she was OK and spent the rest of the time we were there playing with her or asking where she was when she was taking a nap. He then was really sad to see her go and thew a tantrum when we eventually had to leave. It was so nice to see DD with an actually friend to play with (that I didn't have to worry about her hurting all the time and could interact with her) that I had to share his sentiment but in a more adult manner.
