Hi Snoekie! Ah a rose by any other name. . . Well, considering the problems with the game, I'd be worried, but that my be needless worry. I can tell you this, when my husband and I both had games going on at the same time (he had 3 saved files and I had 3 save files) our computer was crashing the game (or the game was crashing our computer) all the time. So hubby, Jessman, finally got tired of being stuck in the Boogre cave (both out doors caused crashes), and he gave up - then I installed the patch, (I needed it to wear the vampire ring) and I haven't had any crashes since. Interesting that you should get the beginning speech - I never heard of this before, except when folks do the reset option of course.
Let us know how it works out for you.
Mammawlin