Having this problem too. I tried a few things and noticed 2 things that might help in solve the problem.
1. The cutscenes work much better at "standard" resolutions (eg. 1280x720, or 1920x1080)
2. The crash can be avoided by pressing a key before you press the "Skip" key. (wait till you see the icon that tells you which key skips the video)
I think the crash may be due to some upscaling or codec issue. It's not such a big thing for me, since the game never crashes🎂, but those videos are really cool(watched them outside game) and I'd really like to enjoy them. FIX IT CRITERION!
The resolution I'm playing on is 1920x1080 on a HD TV
and indeed , sometimes( I'd say 3 out of 5 tries ) the skip movie idea works ( hit another button and then the esc ) , but the other times it just locks up.
Now I'm not a particulary good racer, so I need a few more tries than the usual race-gamers. So it gets pretty annoying that the program locks up and I need about 2 minutes to restart it all
