I just bought Messiah from GOG a few days ago, but I'm already stuck. I've been through the rat tunnel, and got to the cop booth at the other side to activate the elevator. At the top of the elevator is a door, and when I try to open it, the game crashes. I remember when I pirated this game, I got the same problem at the same door. Can anybody help me with this?
In safe mode it seems to work fine, but if I save my game at any point behind this door and try to start up normally again, it crashes just the same.

I got the game recently and i'm too getting this problem at the same place.

I'm experiencing the exact same issue as both of you. Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

Does GOG support even know about the issue?

same problem here

I've notified them about it.

Just FYI: the game is not officially supported on Win. 7 or 8.

It's not worth mentioning for this specific purchase, but remember you can take advantage of a 30-day money-back guarantee if you can't get the game to run correctly.

By "elevator" do you mean the initially unpowered outdoor lift or a real elevator inside a shaft?

If the latter, then:

There is a place/door that crashes everytime for me. It's right by the laser force-field close to the elevator. Not the straight laser type, but the wavy/undulating type. It only happens b/c you're supposed to go down to the sewers first to restore the power, then go back to this door...

Win XP for me.

So a few months later....has the game been fixed?

I also had the crash on Windows XP today, and I did the fix here to get past the door:
http://www.gog.com/forum/messiah/game_crashes_everytime_i_try_to_open_a_certain_door/post10
In fact, I had been playing the Glide version this whole time, so getting the DirectX version working, the game looks much better.

Same problem here, (XP) and I only just bought the game recently (07/2015). door at the top of the elevator, after the rat tunnels. is it a door where it loads a video sequence perhaps?

There are several ways to get past that door if you get that bug:

1) Run the game in save mode (that option appears after a crash). Then play through the section past the door and save. From then on, you can play normally.

2) Install the newest patch (02), which is NOT included in the GOG version! That will add a new option about pre-cached files in the options menu, disable that (should be enabled by default). This will also fix the problem.

has anyone who used the patch gotten the music working?
Installing the patch has solved the door issue for me, but now the game can no longer find the music without having the CD in the drive (which I obviously don't have because this is the GoG version)

I used the patch02 and got music working, rip you messiah cd2 to mp3 files, then use software called _inmm, here is a tutorial:
https://www.play-old-pc-games.com/compatibility-tools/_inmm-dll-tutorial/

Edit: I posted it too fast, I notice that the audio is overlapping