In my experience, saved Witcher games sometimes become glitched for no apparent reason. I've played the beginning of The Witcher at least a dozen times, and most of the time, the transition from the Prologue to Chapter 1 works just fine. But every once in awhile, it gets stuck on the loading screen for the Outskirts and never progresses. My sound and video drivers have been the same for every play-through, and I always have autosave turned on, so those factors don't vary for me, yet most of the time things are fine, but once in awhile, the chapter transition doesn't work.
What works for me is going back to a previous save, playing through Leo's funeral again, and then going on to Chapter 1.
This is true for a lot of little glitches in The Witcher, actually -- if you have a problem, the first thing to try is a previous save. Because of that, it's a good idea to save your Witcher game VERY often. Of course, if you accumulate a lot of saves, it will slow down your game, but you can store the bulk of your saves somewhere other than your The Witcher/saves folder.
So:
1. Save often.
2. If you have a problem, go back to a previous save and try from there. This will fix something like 95% of the glitches that people encounter.
Post edited May 29, 2011 by Corylea