If you find youself repeatedly trying to start Outlook but not getting the application to load – check with task manager that you don’t already have an outlook.exe process already running. In some cases I have seen users end up with half a dozen processes running. The issue appears to be that the “zombie” process has the focus for outlook and that prevents the other new processes from actually starting correctly or displaying anything.
Once you have removed the offending process(es) then start outlook and hopefully you will be rewarded with your inbox.