I think this particular patch: http://cvs.winehq.org/patch.py?id=20640 stopped the game from crashing right after the load screen :)
I'm curious though, when you say the graphics are flawless, does that include the "intro movie" at the start? For me it seems to get the first frame / background wrong. Note that the pattern used is the same as the one used for the initial X root window, but with the colors inverted.
Something else that's wrong, for me at least, is the fact that fog seems to be missing. I suspect this particular err indicates the reason: err:ddraw:set_render_state Unhandled dwRenderStateType D3DRENDERSTATE_RANGEFOGENABLE (00000030) value : 00000000 !
However, as far as I'm concerned neither of those are major issues, just the kind of stuff that makes the difference between "decent" and "great" support for an application.
