I am having a similar issue with talk.bin. Interestingly, if I take the talk.bin and copy the event to a blank design, it works perfectly...
There must be something in the design that is conflicting with this...but I don't know what.
I also think that your talk.bin event may be working but not displaying - b/c this is actually what happens to me. I thought at first that I was locking up the design, but during the talk.bin event, I can type key words, and use
(all from memory of course 
) and if I hit at the proper point, the design continues on.
Considering that I'm using the talk.bin events for about 30 different encounters, my design is dead without it.
I will try deconstructing this error over the next couple of days and post to this thread as I discover or don't discover things. 
Does your only not work from the start? And when you are trying from the start, is your editor open?