I have this problem with Amerzone. Right at the beginning of the game, as I go to the lighthouse and take the letter and open the gate, the game freezes. The gate opens but after that the cursor doesn't show and hitting esc doesn't do anyhting. The music continues playing and I can go to windows with alt+tab and close the game by hitting ctrl+alt+del. It doesn't even say the program isn't responding anymore, it just closes it without any problem.
I'm playing with XP+SP3 and P4 3Ghz with 2 gb ram, and should have allt he newest drivers.
Does anybody have the same problem or know how to fix it?

Have exact the same probem. When opening the gate is seems to freeze, music plays, can alt-tab/ctrl-alt-del out of it with a little trouble. I hoped to find a solution here :-(. About the same config:

System
XP Pro english/SP3
4 GB memory (about 3.2 available I believe)
Pentium Q9550 2.83GHz Core2Quad
NVidia GTX260
Realtek HD Audio (integrated on motherboard)

Edit:
Oops, posted to quickly (or maybe not) Anyway I solved it as follows right click on the icon, select compatibility mode Win95, leave the other stuff unchecked and it works.

Changed it a few times back and forth, disabling it makes it freeze and enabling makes it work.