The patch will prevent the level 2 dungeon in act 1 from being generated empty, but will not spawn monsters in an already created battlefield. It fixes other problems, though, so you should still try to get it working.
Are you shutting down all non-essential programs (especially anti-virus) before trying to start the game?
Does the copy protection window disappear after the CD check?
Are you getting an error message when you try to start BD that it wasn't shut down properly the last time? You should if control gets to the game and it starts to do something before crashing/exiting.
Did you install or update anything else at the same time? I'm pretty sure you shouldn't need to reboot the computer after the patch, just when the game is first installed (that may be different in Windows XP; I use 98SE).
You can try re-installing the patch, or the copy protection;
Updating or removing StarForce drivers.
You could try a clean re-install of the game (and patch if you want to check that there wasn't just a problem installing it the first time).
Zip or otherwise backup your saved games folder to another location first, just in case. Each save is a separate subfolder in the '
..\Beyond Divinity\savegames' folder; the 5 '
bd_act#_start' folders are created/updated by the game/patch, and do not need to be backed up.
Un-install the game, re-boot, in Windows Explorer browse to the '
Beyond Divinity' folder and make sure there are no files or folders remaining, except within the '
savegames' folder (though the 5 '
bd_act#_start' folders should be gone). After that, shut down all non essential programs (especially anti-virus), re-install the game, re-boot and shut down all non essential programs again. Start the game to confirm the problem is with the patch and not something else that changed in your system. After that you may want to try installing the patch again, then re-boot, shut down all non essential programs, and see if you can start the game.