The game will not even load for me - Both the .exe and Tropsafe.bat do nothing.

Running Win 8.1 64 bit.

Kinda sounds like maybe some crucial file is missing or corrupted -- try installing it again, maybe in a different folder (not Program Files), and preferably from a freshly downloaded installer. Run the installer as Administrator (maybe try running the executable as Admin. before you reinstall, too, if you haven't already tried that).