Hey guys,
So I recently built a new PC and I have this problem with Skyrim crashing to desktop right after clicking play on the pop-up panel where you can adjust your video settings. The Skyrim icon doesn't show up, it just seems to have the forever-circle time thing on windows 7 appear by my mouse, and then I can't click on anything. My current settings are i5 3750k @ 3.4 GHz (OCd to 4.4GHz), 8 GHz (2x4GB) of GSkill Ripjaws X 9-9-9-24, Nvidia GTX 560 Ti 448 cores FTW edition, 296.10 Drivers (newest ones from what I had found). I've tried verifying and defragging game cache integrity, trying out changing the audio settings (that weird glitch that occurred at launch), reinstalling drivers for the 560 Ti, reinstalling it manually from the steamapps folder. I'm at my wits end with this. My old Athlon x2 +6000 and 4850 ran this game flawlessly on High. Kinda annoyed that I can't run it now. Thanks for the help in advance.

Edit: Btw, here http://i.imgur.com/Lcrc9.jpg is the screen it gets to. After I hit play, it just has the Windows loading icon.

Anyone have any clue? I'm really lost here. I may just download it via TPB and see if it works that way. It's a shame...

Bethesda games can have problems with other software interfering with them. For example a number of AV packages can cause games to crash due to the AV software interering with the games exe.

First things first;
Set the game to lowest possible settings to make sure its not a configuration error.
Then disable any active background programs like anti-virus programs or peripheral software (logitech etc).
If it still crashes, do a "clean boot" procedure and check the game to test if any other programs are causing the problems

If you still have errors, its likely a problem either with the game data itself or your systems setup.

A few things to check if that is the case;
Do you have the correct motherboard drivers and the most recent version?
Are you sure the graphics drivers are up to date and the correct version for your operating system?
Are your audio drivers up to date and the correct version for your OS?
Do you have DEP enabled in windows?
Have you verified that your Direct X is working correctly (dxdiag)?
If your system is overclocked in the slightest set it everything to default.

Well, I did more investingating with the Task Manager and found that it is a program that called ekag20nt.exe which is spamming 20 billion times at Skyrims launch, thus raising my RAM and CPU to full load within a minute. Looking further I found it was part of Virtua MVP and part of the Z77 Chipset software. Apparently it is some electronic key mechanism which reconnects constantly to the server for some sort of authentication. Uninstalled Virtua MVP, worked like a charm. Thanks Lexandro!