As far as I know, problems loading the peak were an issue with the first release of the game, and it can be fixed by downloading a patch. Perhaps you recently reinstalled the game and forgot to patch it? Other than that, I've never seen it happen myself... If you're running a version of the game that's earlier than 1.2.4, then you can find the patch for it here:
http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1009418133/