After installing Empire Earth along with it's expansion Art of Conquest, I would experience issues when running Empire Earth which manifested itself as a black screen when the game menu was displayed. So after some tinkering I found a solution that works for my system. It may not work for everyone.

To get Empire Earth to play here are the steps I take:

1. Run Empire Earth - The Art of Conquest.
2. At the opening menu "black screen" press Left Alt+Tab. This will minimize it to the task bar.
3. Left click on the minimized icon and it will bring it back but this time the menu will be displayed.
4. Setup your preferred resolution settings and save.
5. Close the program.
6. Run it again. You will get the back screen again at the menu but if you Left Alt+Tab and click on the minimized icon you will be able to get back to the menu.
7. Run Empire Earth, not the Art of Conquest, now and rinse and repeat steps 2 thru 6.
8. Play on!