tj_extreme I have a fix for you. I turned off my AV. Bingo, game launched.
Hope this helps you. I will try to find out any settings that may be causing this.
Edit:
Sorry about that double post, I am still having a hard time learning and getting used to American freedom and freedom of the free world itself has been comprimised.
Along with my AV is firewall/intrusion detection. Sorry this didnt help you.
Please don't double post, use the edit button (it's the little pencil). And thanks, but I run no antivirus software whatsoever, because it seems to cause a lot of problems like this.
I think Yami is on to the correct way to fix the issue. While watching some YouTube Gameplay of Skyrim one of the commentators said that they changed their volume setting to some other number(don't know what it is, sorry). I think you should go from there. I'm still downloading mine from Steam.