found this in the official forums:
https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4791
Wasteland Known Issues
Wasteland drops back to the desktop immediately after launching and it eventually closes the game out.
o Restarting your computer can fix the issue.
o If the issue persists, update your video card and monitor drivers and restart again.
o The game may not run on monitors below resolutions of 1280x720 and will dump to desktop if rejecting your resolution.
iirc, you were running 1024x768, weren't you?
there is another thread here:
https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com//viewtopic.php?p=82115 where somebody posted a solution for this
I recently got it working on my netbook which has a reso of 1024x600.
Going into the configure file, I set fullscreen to false, and set the resolution to match the netbook's. When you start the game, it is indeed off center and doesn't fit the desktop well. However, wait for the splash screens to go by, and once you're on the options screen, you can alt-enter to fullscreen and it works just fine.
Just setting the default resolution won't suffice, you need to do both. It's kind of annoying, but a pretty small workaround, all things considered. And since it's just the splash screens that are the problem, you can fullscreen the game once they're gone. I played up through Harry before I had to quit, but it worked.
since I don't have the game, I can't add any more advice. Maybe the others who have this game can tell you exactly where this config file is, that they are talking about.
edit:
really hilarious that they ship a game from the 80s which requires a resolution of at least 720p. Especially considering how the game looks :p