Just replying for anyone's benefit that might run into the same issue as me. As I have been stupidly trying to get it fixed for a couple of days now.
Problem description: MELE launcher works fine, ME2 and ME3 would launch fine. ME1 however would launch really slowly and crash around 20s after launch, no matter what I did (e.g. idling on the main screen, going into options or starting a game).
I tried every solution posted except the alternate launcher, because on my laptop the MELE launcher worked just fine. Now I just tried downloading the custom launcher and ME1 launches much quicker and runs stable on my PC.
TLDR: Even if MELE launcher works, try the custom launcher if experiencing problems.
