Reading your post above, i suddenly decided to try and run my EoSD, and yep, it loaded up and played perfectly the 5 to 6 times i closed and restarted it.
Running on Windows 8 Single Language, with AppLocale, just like before when it would stop responding at the 'Wait Warmly' screen.
Can't decide what is more annoying.... the game not working at all, or the fact that getting it to work is a hit or miss dependent on seemingly random factors.....