Hai.
I have this problem as well - basically meaning that my game crashes everytime I hit "go" from the character screen, more precisely at the moment when the random deviantart picture is showing. My friends say I appear online briefly, but for me it's just an instant crash the moment the game is supposed to start.
This used to happen before, but I got around it by switching characters, restarting the game etc. However, nowadays nothing seems to work. :| Anyway, I since I run the game in windowed mode, I managed to catch a glimpse at the code parser when it loads the game, and I also successfully took a screenshot of the error that seems to be the cause of the crash for the game at least for me - and I'd be willing to bet it's the reason for many others too. Here it is:
As far as I know, UTF-8 has something to do with the font system - or the way letters are shown, I'm a bit unsure on that. Anyway, I hope someone with technical background (Kov!
) could have a look at this, since I think this could be the cause for the problems so many of us seemingly are facing.
Hope this was of some use.
Later folks.
EDIT: To be specific, this is the error that I get in the transition stage between the deviantart picture and when the game is supposed to begin. I do not believe computer restarts and game restarts are ways to go around this - as it seems to be some kind of a programming bug, or something that affects certain kind of hardware (certain graphics cards maybe?) -- so I urge you people not to spend too much time restarting and whatnot - it likely won't do you any good, except increase the frustration.