Please help! Medieval froze, I quit, screen went black!

[Seabody]

I updated Medieval today, and went to play it. I picked the new ambition, and then went to create a monarch. I loaded the Sim Bin up, and the avatars were missing (they came, but slowly). So I quit the bin, then opened again - the game froze. I Ctrl+Alt+Deleted my way out of the game, but accidentally hit the minimized game icon in the taskbar. Now my screen is black and has been for a few minutes. I can't quit out. What do I do?

EDIT:
I took the battery out (it's a laptop), and nothing happened!
EDIT 2:
I took the Laptop to my mother. She did the same thing, and it worked. What the heck is happening?!

[vlsullivan]

Don't you remember? Mom's touch can fix ANYTHING

Victoria
Experienced Mom and Grandmom

More seriously -

This will tell you how to solve most black screen problems that occur while the game is running

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/6367614.page#14524754

The lockup of your laptop? Well, maybe the battery needed to be out for a period of time so all the capacitors could drain. I'm no electrical engineer, but I've built a number of desktops. Good Luck!

[Seabody]

Welcome to the forum!
Thank you Victoria. I think (again, THINK) that this was a Black Screen of Death, judging by the message "The System has recovered from a serious error" or something, that appeared when I rebooted.
Still, as soon as I can, I'll clear caches. Thank you!