Some older CD-ROM drives are not ISO compliant. If the game crashes before you see the Maxis logo then it might be crashing in the copy protection software. To determine if that is the case, launch the game without The Sims CD in the drive. If the game crashes before you see the "Insert the CD" dialog then the game is crashing in the copy protection software. This is a known problem on non-ISO compliant CD-ROM drives.

The only known fix at this time is to get a newer CD-ROM drive.