After having the same problem where the game always crashes after the intro, i had a thought and tried the multiplayer. I choose to play the legend mode solo, and to my surprise the game loaded fine, i could play without any issues, graphics are perfect, no crashing, which brings me to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with my system, or the drivers, it is a problem with the game. Maybe for me and many others, the problem is somethign to do with loading the game scripts that dont need loadign when playing multiplayer?
Anyone else having issues, i suggest loading multiplayer to see if you have the same issues, maybe the mutliplayer versinon of the game is somehow more compatible, maybe comparing the files in the mp base will shed some light on this