If this is the old CD game, what may help is disconnecting from the internet. That happened to me (loading up for one player) but when I disconnected the ethernet cable, it worked fine. By the way, if the thing does start working, SAVE FREQUENTLY!

Can you go from Eastern Europe to Turkey? It works in the CD game, but I don’t remember anything in the rules about it being legal. That sliver of water between Istanbul and Europe is pretty insignificant, so I thought it might be possible.