In the topic
Never ending loading screen. 100% of the time., Donice posted a save after the initial cutscene. There is an illusionist in the first village that can change the geneder / voice / appearance / name of the character.
Perhaps you could download
that save, at least to see if it can be loaded. Mehale also posted a link to
a save just after the intro. Presumably the game has maintained backward compatibility (not sure about mixing saves between game versions) even if there were changes to the save game format, so perhaps this save could help narrow down the problem.
In XP the saves go in the folder
C:\Documents and Settings\ %username% \Local Settings\Application Data\Divinity 2\Savegames
or in Vista / Win 7
C:\Users\ %username% \AppData\Local\Divinity 2\Savegames
You may need to set Windows Explorer to show hidden files and folders.
First Aid Kit for Divinity IIFirst Aid : when Div2 does not start or crashes