I've tried two installs on two computers, one with Win 7, one with 8, both 64bit, one on AMD and one Intel CPU. And still the game crashes after "loading sectors" 75% of time. Sometimes it starts I can only note that it starts more often in window mode than in fullscreen. The actual error happens in temple.dll. And of course I'm using 7.9.0... Does anybody have a similar issues?
I think many people have that issue with this version. This is probably the most relevant thread: http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10527 Personally I deal with it by just starting the game a few times until it works. Once it's finally running it doesn't crash (more than it used to). It usually starts after 2-3 tries for me.
I find the simplest way around this is to switch resolutions each time you load. I have 2 I know work and if I switch after the CTD (which I get every time I load up the first time), it will always load. Give it a go.