What could have fixed the game for you is administrative privileges - with UAC enabled Vista and Win 7 don't allow to save files on system drive (Chi peeps ...
buddy and I, installed the 2004 version but we also got "runtime error" thingy, and so we googled and googled, but non of your answers worked until we thought "DOH!" this is an old game, just change compability functions, and start as an admin ... problem solved ..
anywhere except user's directory - C:\Users\[user]\.