(edit - it happens I76 too, and not just Nitro Pack)
There's a screenshot attached. Doesn't matter whether I use software, Glide, or D3D.

Well better late then never. Dunno what glide emulator you use. But here is how I fixed it.
I had the same problem. Option menu at the main menu worked fine. But in-game. Either notepad or the pause screen had any thing on it. I used dgVoodoo to play glide. I thought it was because I was playing it at 1600x1050. But even at 640x480 it was the same.
Now for the past few days I've been playing around with dgVoodoo on NFS2 SE. But it just keept running slow.
So I installed a glide emulator called nGlide. Unlike dgVoodoo that you need to have in the game folder. This is just installed to windows and automatically activates when you play glide games. NFS2 SE worked perfect.
Later when I got back to I76 the menu in game worked. I uninstalled nGlide, and sure enough it was blank again. Now I still use dgVoodoo for I76. But nGlide runs in the background to. Even sorted out some issues I had with the smoke when the car has taken some damage. The textures form the tiers or an explosion would some how get replaced with the smoke texture. heck one time the tire texture some how got set as a sky texture after I blew up a building. It fixed that to.
Hope it works for you to.