I started decrypting F:NV at about 1:30pm. At 6pm it was still only at 41%. Steam crashed several times during that time frame. I am, at this point, validating the files. Its a shot in the dark, but I'm hoping it will help.

I haven't seen any other posts about this. Am I missing something? Am I doing something wrong? I'm extremely frustrated, as this was supposed to be my day off to play this game. If anyone can help, it'd be great.

Decrypting was for the pre-load, sounds like it might be faster for you to just "delete local content" and download the game again. It will download in decrypted form so it should not take as long.

I have stupid problems like that with Steam every time I preload something. Validating the files actually did fix it for me, it found a bunch of problems and re-downloaded about 25 megs worth, then it was fine. Hopefully that worked for you too.

Count your self lucky. I tried to unlock it 11 hours ago unsucessfully and still cannot even get to the steam server to unlock it. I had similar issues with Empire Total War years ago and since haven't even bothered looking at another Total War game.. this will probably be my last Bethesda/Obsidian game aswell if they stick with Steam.