Exactly what it says on the tin. Game launches okay, then parks at the select player screen. It's as if I have no mouse/keyboard focus - that is, there's no mouse, and the only keyboard commands that work are alt-F4 and alt-tab.
Also - the default shortcut (to Earth2160_START) didn't appear to do anything; but I get the above situation when using either *_SSE or *_NO_SSE

hmm I did have the same problem when starting up as you - though I restarted a few times and it cleared. Might want to check that your firewall is not asking for permission for hte program to access the net - often this can confuse and break a game - so make sure it has persmissions open or closed - either way a definate setting tends to clear things