Are you running the latest version of the October 2006 DirectX 9.0c release?
When you get a chance, please go to start:run:Dxdiag and see if you can run the directdraw and direct3d tests without problems.
One issue that does come up once in a while is IRQ sharing. Check and see if your video card, network card and if present, sound card are sharing an IRQ? That's a perfectly valid windows assignment, but games like FFXI and everquest often do not like it when they do share an IRQ.
Also, try disabling one of your monitors temporarily in display manager and see if you can load that way. If that's the case you may need to switch from dual view to fullscreen mode, or drop the second monitor entirely.
Another thing to try when you get a chance:
Run FFXI. after it crashes, go to start:settings:control panel and bring up administrative tools and the Event manager. See if there are any error or warnign flags for that specific time period in any of the categories and post them here.