Mac freezes upon game starting

About 80% of the time, when I try to open the game (at all, via the launcher or just the program itself), my Macbook Pro locks up. At first, nothing will respond, but after about 30 sec-1 min, the cursor is able to move but it's just the spinning beach ball of doom. I can't click anything and no keystrokes are recognized, which just leads me to hard-resetting via the power button.