Same thing with me. Can't get past that part of the beginning of chapter 2. It actually starts at the end of the interlude. I found if I skip the cutscenes after the interlude I can actually make it to chapter 2, otherwise it will lockup during one of the cutscenes.
Looks like this guy has the same problem also,
http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=55220
Windows XP Professional SP2
AMD Athlon 2700+
1gig of pc2700 ram
ATI Radeon 9800 pro 128mb
ASUS A7N8X-X
no overclocking.
The never winter nights process spikes to full cpu utilization for about 5-10 minutes before it will finally crash.
I've tried disabling anti-virus as well but it still locks up. Press the "Win" key will minimize to the desktop & allow me to kill the process.