Here's the workaround that worked for me.
Every time you alt-tab out of the game and re-enter it the screen should be visible again I'll call this "refreshing" in the following directions.
1) start the game, hit esc until you can't hear the videos playing anymore
2) Refresh
3) Click on options
4) refresh
5) Click on graphics
6) refresh
7) switch windows mode, the second setting to yes, then click the check mark in the bottom left.
refresh and exit the game
9) Reopen the game, it should now be displayed in a window, and the graphics should be operating as they were meant to.
Please note, when I tried to use other methods to open the game in windows mode the games settings overrode the requests. This is the only way I could get it to work properly in a window. Of course, your results may vary.
I hope the above steps work for you like they did for me.
Also I need to acknowledge Bart Pawlak, from 1c tech support for suggesting I run the game in windows mode.
Goodluck.