I'm trying to create a quest in the Creation Engine but when I try to select a race there's nothing in the dropdown menus. The same thing happens when I go to the Inventory tab. I can't create a character without selecting a model to use, so what should I do?

Have you loaded Skyrim.esm? You have to load that first unless you want to do EVERYTHING from scratch.

I also recommend that you check out Bethesda's tutorials if you haven't yet: http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Tutorials

Loading it now. Does it usually take this long? I'm thinking CE locked up.

Loaded the master file. I got the full list of races now. Thanks.