I struggled to find an explanation for this error on the internet, even though Google searching got me close to the answer. Finally I found this: http://www.erikbianchi.com/archives/flash/index.html

I had problems with both Flash MX and Flash 8 suddenly crashing on startup, during font initialization. I found several strange explanations that usually had to do with Mac and not PC. I use Win XP right now.

So how do you fix this problem?

First try uninstalling Quicktime (This fixed my problem)

Second try uninstalling the Flash Video Encoder (I didn’t need to do this)

Now I am back to happy times of actionscripting and animating.