I have created a content source in SharePoint 2010 environment as follows.
a. Go to in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.
b. On the Manage Service Applications page, click Search Service Application.
c. Click Content Sources under crawling.
d. On the Manage Content Sources page, click New Content Source.
If you receive an error message "The search application on server did not finish loading. View the event logs on the affected server for more information". The resolution is to create a new search application and delete the old one.
happy Share Pointing :-)