I was put through the wringer the other night. I shut off a couple of ATI services that I felt didn't need to be running, like "hot key poller".
I go to play the game, I load up my save, get to the "please wait" screen, then get the same message Shark Bait got. The game kept crashing just as it was about to get in the saved mission. I could not believe those services would crash my game. Tried restarting them but made no difference. I thought well, I'll try re-installing the ati drivers, crash... re-run 1.2 patch, crash... repair install, patch, crash... AHHHHH!!!
Finally loaded an earlier save, works.... had a corrupt save.
Avgwarhawk, I'm not sure, but I found a register reminder in my windows startup folder. What I don't remember is if it was for the game or my turbo tax. hehe