Sylvius,
I don't think the problem is ME, or at least not entirely.  I've got an ME Dell desktop that runs SE IV (v. 1.49, haven't tried Gold yet) and Wizardry 8 flawlessly.  I've also got a Dell laptop (also with ME) that issues RCE's on SE IV in exactly the manner you describe (select a ship, and goodnight).  Several others in this forum have reported similar problems.
As near as we can figure, there's a program running in background on newer Dell machines that causes this crash.  The work-around seems to be to wait about 30 minutes after boot-up to start SE IV.  Then it seems to work, although I don't think anybody knows why.  You didn't say whether your ME machine was a Dell, but even if it isn't the work-around may be worth a try.  Hope this helps.
L.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvius:
Hey guys.
My Range Check Error was actually taking place during my turn.  I'd try to select a ship for orders and I'd get the error.  This happened in every game I attempted after the first.
So I installed on a Win 98 system instead and the problem never arose.
I hate WinME.  I haven't had a single game run properly on that thing (having tried such titles as SE4, Ultima 9, Shogun Total War, and Wizardry 8).