I just put together a fresh install, and I can't even start a new game.

What I've done:

I read those readme's; maybe I missed something somewhere, but I read them. I sorted my load order with BOSS, read the load order notes, and patched it with Bash. I have Script Dragon and SKSE installed.

This is my load list according to Bash, weighing in at about 40 plugins:

Item 1C, Dual Wield Parrying_ScriptDragon.esp, is the sole reason I have Script Dragon installed.

I have Skyrim Community Uncapper, Smart Souls, and SkyUI installed, all of which require SKSE.

I installed everything by hand, with one exception: openfacehelmetsreplacer.esp (item 13) I could only find on the Steam Workshop.

My computer is plenty beefy enough to run Skyrim; I ran it last night on high settings (with several replacers already installed, but nothing else) as a test to be sure, and it ran fine.

What I've observed:

If I try to start a new game, the words on the main menu fade out and a shouting sound acknowledges my selection, but the menu background doesn't clear away. It just sits there, with the dragon logo and the fog and the slowly rising viking chant, unresponsive.

If I try to load the one save that currently exists, an autosave made at character creation when I booted the game up the night before, a loading screen appears for less than a second then Skyrim crashes to desktop.

These two behaviors (above) occur independent of whether I use the native launcher or the SKSE loader to run Skyrim.

If I open Wrye Bash, the plugin load order shows up as expected from the BOSS sorting output.

If I open the Skyrim launcher, most of the items I see match the load order and activation status I expect, with one exception: SpecializedFollowers.esp (item 1F) is not activated, and appears as last to load. (moveitLWT.esp and Lost Art of the Blacksmith.esp are not activated, but that is expected since they are part of the bashed patch; they show as last in the load order, but that is irrelevant as far as I know.) I then activate it and move it into the "correct" position (according to BOSS) using the launcher. Closing and reopening the launcher shows that it is still correctly positioned and activated. I then attempt to re-run Bash and recompile the patch. Multiple times during this process I receive an error message from Bash: "An invalid plugin load order has been corrected." When I attempt to rebuild the patch, I receive a window about a delinquent master issue involving the Update.esm and moonpath.esm, but the details aren't exactly clear; note that this does not happen except after I've tried to fix SpecializedFollowers.esp's load order using the Skyrim launcher. Normally the patch compiles just fine, and can incorporate moonpath.esm without trouble. Unchecking moonpath.esm and moonpath_questdata.esp allows the patch to compile without problems, but so does running Boss then Bash then Boss again then Bash again. And in the end, the launcher shows my load order screwed up again in the same fashion as before, and the game CTDs in the same fashion as before.

I made a few changes to NVidia settings today, but reverting them to default settings doesn't change anything.

Help?

If your running Skyrim 1.6 from what I'm aware Script Dragon hasn't yet been updated to be compatible.

It has been updated (Couple weeks ago I think), but the game wouldn't have even reached the title screen if Script Dragon was out of date

I'd recommend doing thing in the order I list them:

1) Make sure that all drivers and Directx are up to date.

2) Try deleting your Skyrim and SkyrimPrefs inis and let skyrim generate new ones after following step 1. Don't change any settings after you do this and try starting a new game.

If the above steps don't help then proceed to the below steps:

3) Are your mods up-to-date? You may have a mod that is incompatible with 1.6.89

4) You may need to try uninstalling groups of mods until you can pinpoint your crashes, if disabling half the mods fixes the issue, reenable half of them, if the crashes return, disable half of the mods you re-enabled, etc. This is a tried an true method of locating problem mods. I hope you didn't actually install them manually, and are actually using the Installers portion of Wrye Bash, because this makes installing/uninstalling mods a cakewalk. The reason you need to uninstall is because mods usually come with scripts, which still run when the ESP is deactivated, and there could be textures or meshes (etc) that could be causing the game to hang.

5) Have you tried a "Clean Boot" (Google it)? You could have a background program interfering with Skyrim (E.g. Anti-Virus).