Okay, I just bought the game today and got the patch (1.34) and installed before I ever started the game. Now, the game crashes when I try to equip a shield or if I die and try to reload. Here's my info:

Dell Dimension 4550 - Pentium 4 - 2.4 GHz
Windows XP home w/latest updates
256k RAM
Indeo Video 5.03, Indeo i.263 driver
Analog Devices Soundmax driver version 5.1.2535.0
MaCafee Virus scan
Swap file (my own) 750M-1G
30G drive/12.2G open space
Direct X 9.00
Color 16 bit (changed to this after initial problems)
Clean install, so no other downloads besides the patch

I tried everything that was recommended at larian.com, but nothing works. Thanks for any help.