Any chance of a patch addressing 64 bit operating systems?

[I say]

Probably, unfortunately.
I had the game running fine until I patched it, so the old version seemed to run with some 64 bit setups. After one of the patches it started crashing in the same way you see described in many threads here. I tried uninstalling and installing again, but it seems it comes prepatched now in the downloadable version, so there's no way I'll get it to play, unless 1C starts recognizing that up to more than 20% of their paying customers won't be able to enjoy what they paid for. Which is a bit unethical and disappointing. And the game is really, really good too, which makes the whole thing even worse.

But write to customer support, they are really helpful and deserve credit, they do try getting it working for you. There's just a big risk it won't ever work, sorry.