I just tried to start a multiplayer game with a friend. We are both running 1.02 and neither of us have installed any mods. We went with a large galaxy, 2 standard players, and 2 standard AI's. When I tried to run the game it stayed on "loading custom ship data" for me and "loading players" for him. After 15 minutes we gave up and tried again, same results. We then tried having him run the game and it quickly went to the "loading custom ship data" for both of us and then after about a minute GC III shut down on him, and put me back to the start screen. He restarted GC III and tried again, and we got the same result. Our computers are both fully at what is needed and his is better. I have been playing single player games, my last was a Hugh galaxy with 7 AI's and run without any problems for 946 turns. He can also run a single player game with no problems.
Any ideas on what the problem might be?