I had these issues with steam plus intermittently crew fatigue would start again after I turned it off, unable to start at sea, ship names would not update, intro movies would play, the 4gig patch would not install so MFM would give me CTD's. I had to keep re-installing the game because it would crash, I would get a null in patrol grid, and my player would not load!
I ordered SHII and SHIII combo through the Subsim store (out of frustration) and have been happily patrolling the oceans blue since I received it!. SHIII is version 1.4 (no need to patch) and starforce free. As a bonus you can edit everything!!!
Happy Hunting from a non-Steam user as far as Silent Hunter is concerned.