Ok, so it DID work at last! For the future generations of oldgamers who might experience the same - I don't know what worked exactly, but I did everything that I found in this topic:
- install outside the Program files folder
- disable antivirus
- dgvoodoo
- patch to version 1.3
- compatibility settings as described by previous commentators
- disable HID-compliant device
I installed every single thing from this list for mm9:
http://mm6world.ru/archiv.htm It doesn't freeze on loading, graphics is good, everything goes well. The only thing is that it freezes when I exit the game, but come on, I've been trying to make it work for so long, so I can put up with that.
Also if somebody has this problem - when you name your characters, the names wouldn't save. To make it work you need to press enter after you type in the name and then go to overview party screen - repeat for each character.