The issue has to do with windowed mode. The game stores its initial graphics settings in a simple 8 byte binary file called StartupResolutionOptions.bin
This file in default configuration with the fullscreen byte modified to “On” is as follows:
01 00 00 00 80 07 00 00
That first hex value (the “01”) is the fullscreen byte. The rest are the default values which you can change later if you wish. If you create a document with those values in a hex editor (if you don’t have one navigate to http://hexed.it for a simple online version), and then save it as “StartupResolutionOptions.bin” in your install directory, the game should start with no issues.
Hope this helps