Well, I am convinced it is not going to load after 15-20 minutes. All my drivers are current, let me know if any ideas for fix, re-install steam etc.

It took quite long for my game to start too. I was almost giving up when it finally showed the intro. Something's buggy.

I also had this problem, but thanks to the rest of you I was watching for it. After jerking it out from under itself I restarted it and got to the intro clip in about 30 seconds (I7-4770).

During that first ultra long load I noticed that the game was scheduled many tasks that were being run, just like normal. It is as if there is something being done on the first start up that is not being recognized as completed.

Yea, first time I loaded the beta, it took forever. I got the "not responding" message, but decided to let it continue to try. A couple of minutes later it started up. I set up my first game and it crashed when I hit the "Manage" button on my home world.

I restarted the game and it came up normally and I was able to play. Something about the first game after patching seems to make it go nuts.