Do you have the "Load all maps" option turned on?
Or maybe you are running the game with the -relight command line option? With this option it may take an hour to load and relight the map(s).
If you are on Windows, go to the Start menu and select Run. Enter cmd to the dialog box and in the command prompt window change to the "C:\Program Files\PlaneShift Crystal Blue" directory. Then enter psclient.exe -console
It will open another console window and start the game. Look at that console window for any messages when it hangs. If you are running in the full screen mode, change to the windowed mode first.