I am also having a problem of crashing when trying to select a race.  After reading the posts I am certain it is my video card.  It is an Intel GMA 950.  Doing some googling, it appears that it is just crap.  There seems to be no way to update it and apparently it is really bad with the OpenGL.  Has anyone else had this problem that was able to find a fix.

If not, in researching my card I found people with this card could not play Spore until the game updated something.  I am not real good at computer programming but I am willing to put in the time if there is anything I can do and there is someone to help me along.