my 2p worth:
I had the same problem (along with a few others), but mine was solved by turning off sound, setting the graphics to the minimum, setting screen to full screen and most importantly, upgrading to the latest drivers from the ATI website (have a Radeon 9600).
I also had issues with the zonealarm firewall, the game would load to 100% and then wait... apparently a zonealarm pop-up was waiting for me to allow the game access to the net.
Hope it helps