EDIT: Not solved, DirectDraw=0 was causing game instability. However, black bar at top of screen seems to appear and disappear randomly with every game start. More often present than absent. Tried every permutation of ini possible. Wit's end, here.

Win7 x64, game crashes 1-2 minutes into every game.

-Tried all compatibility settings, run as admin, tried tweaking the ini file.
-Had to set DirectDraw=0, or else a large black bar was present at the top of the screen, and other graphical anomalies occurred (including non-refreshing menus and screwy color palette).
-Installed June 2010 DirectX package. Reboot. No dice.
-Even tried the 1.03 XP compat patch. No dice.
-Disabled UAC, crashes. Reinstalled, crashes.

You may have a system-specific incompatibility, since the game runs on my Win7 x64 system without any special tweaks. If you are running any other applications, close them and see if that helps. If that doesn't help, try rebooting into safe mode and see if that makes the game stable. If so, perhaps some process or service is at fault. Then use msconfig to selectively disable various services and startup options. Anti-virus/malware utilities can cause conflicts, also software firewalls. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the suggestions! I will try them later tonight. Got frustrated with the game instability and left it alone for a while to go see a movie. Feeling optimistic.

EDIT: DirectDraw=0 in the ini file was causing game instabiliy. Black bar randomly is present or absent at top of screen with every game start. More often than not is present. Tried every permuation of ini file I could think of. Done trying for now. Damn.

This appears to be a widespread issue. Just google it and you'll find a plethora of people with the same issue. Highly unlikely its your system.