I'm just at the start of the game, trying to talk to the town guard at the gate. A load icon appears, but nothing happens, and I can't initiate dialogue. I'm locked into this 'almost' conversation and have to quit the game.

A few people have run into this problem, but there are a few workarounds. You should be able to quicksave and quickload at that point, which usually gets the cutscene conversation there to proceed normally.

Alternately, if you try again and head straight to the gate (rather than wandering off the path or stopping to kick rabbits to death, etc) it may work. One person had a problem if they approached from the right, but not from the left. Another said they rebooted their computer and didn't have a problem when they tried again (so either rebooting helped or it was a random glitch the first time). Another said they lowered their resolution and graphics options until they got past the cutscene, and then saved, put all the settings back and had no problems after that.

I have a similarly problem. As soon as I see the lightning the game crashes. I haven't managed to finish the game as a result :(

Had this problem in 8, but its never happened to me in the 8.1 update....