is the OS XP or Vista? You need to turn off automatically restart, the instructions are different for each OS.

For XP:
1.Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2.Click the Advanced tab.
3.Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box.
4.Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK the necessary number of times.
5.Restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

For Vista:
1. Click Start button
2. From Start menu Click Control panel
3. In Control Panel Click the System icon
4. In the System Window look on the Left hand side of the window and you will see a list of options. Click on the Advanced System Settings option
5. Because Computer management requires administrative privileges you may find the the User Account Control will pop up. If it does then enter the required information (if you are not the administrator) or, if you are the administrator, click the Continue button
6. In the Advanced Settings window look for the Startup and Recovery section and then Click the Settings button
7. In the Startup and recovery window look for the section marked System failure and remove the 'tick' mark from the 'Automatically Restart' option. Now press OK button
8. Finally click the OK button on the System properties Window and then close the system window, restart your computer.

When you have done that open another word document. I would expect you to get a blue screen with an error message on it. Write it down (particularly the line that begins "STOP: 0x0000008E) and post the error here.

If you don't get a blue screen at this point I am out of ideas...