I can't start a new game! Help me!!!

[simulacrum]

So earlier I was playing as Spurs from my game off the demo which had convinced me to buy the game. For the record, I still can load that Spurs save.

Here I am, wanting to start a new game as my favourite team, Bayern. But every time I try to start a new game fm12 goes non-responsive at almost the exact same point ("Setting up game database") in the loading phase after specifying which divisions of the countries I want.

Every. Single. Time.

WTF is this and how can I actually get my money's worth and be able to play the game? If at all possible I'd rather not uninstall and reinstall since that would entail a new download and my internet is painful out here in the middle of nowhere ...

 

[simulacrum]

Anyone please?

I've done some of my own troubleshooting, deleting and clean re-installing steam three times, fm 12 once. I've verified my game cache files, the first couple times it made me update a 40.7mb file which appeared to do nothing.

I'm trying to do a new clean install of fm 12, but with my internet I won't know the results until tomorrow at the earliest.

Can anyone give me any suggestions? especially if you've seen the problem before.