Firstly, paitence young padawan.

Secondly, there is no screen of hoplites when starting up EB, you are instead starting up vanilla RTW. Seeing as vanilla RTW is crashing it would suggest that there is something wrong with that install.

Delete the copy of RTW which you have used to install EB onto, and then start up a game of normal RTW 1.5 from your backup copy of RTW. If that works copy it as before under a new name. Install EB0.81a over the top. Start the game using the shortcut that will appear on your desktop. It will take a while to load probably, but while it is loading it should show the EB campaign map with the faction symbols round the outside.

Foot