Hum DDraw usually crashes the whole comp with a small error... here are the 2 most likely causes of your problem:

Code:
DDERR_NOEXCLUSIVEMODE
The operation requires the application to have exclusive mode, but the application does not have exclusive mode.

DDERR_NOPALETTEATTACHED
No palette object is attached to this surface.
The first one is, I think, what is happening - is your game running in exclusive mode?

Just a wild guess