Just delete all FILES in "my files\simutrans" NOT the directories may help to get it working again.
You can disable sounds and midi using the -nomidi and -nosound commandline options.
Would it be possible for you to run simutrans in Microsoft Visual Studio? That means compiling yourself.
Quote
EDIT2: Apparently, when loading a [network] save, it freezes the entire system until the map is loaded -
This is to be expected. The game must be fully available in order to start playing.
Quoteand crashes after 5 seconds. Unsure if the latter is a network feature bug.
This is not a feature :P Does the crash happen as soon as the game is loaded or does it happen after the game is running some seconds?
Another question: What OS you are running? Simutrans can use IPv6 under windows; however on Win2k all such functionality is lacking.
And what is your graphic driver? Simutrans uses 16Bit support, which is very often more or less broken on newer systems. Does SDL-version and GDI-version crash both? Maybe try updating the driver.
Does the crash still occur with " -nosound " in the command line? There are broken Sounddriver around too.
Finally, Simutrans can crash by wrong commands from the network, this is not filly checked yet. Is your windows firewall on?