I ran a small but interesting test. I took another game.
My screen resolution is at 1280x800. So I went into the games settings and put in the command for it to start at resolution 1280x800 in windowed mode.
The result was the game starting up like this:
I then launched the game again but with altered settings. This time I let it launch normal fullscreen, the only theoreticaly difference is 1cm less space to convert to graphics on the bottom otherwise the launches seem almost identical in terms of graphic output and power to bring about the images. HOWEVER with the fullscreen launch it crashed and BSOD'd immediately the second the game tried to launch.....
My PC seems to not like fullscreen applications no matter how often I installed and uninstalled new drivers.