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oooh, I've got an idea! Switch to OS X!

Sarcasm aside, I suggest you fool around with your extensions. Turn them all off and see if things work. Then turn them on a few at a time until you see which one is the problem. There's a nifty app to help you do this, but I forgot the name. I think it's by Casady and Green, though, so go find their website a look for something to do with extensions.
If that doesn't work, er... reinstall the OS?
Good luck.

First, make sure all your hardware is plugged in securely. If you've got ADB, a loose connection will crash your Mac for sure.

Then try rebuilding the desktop.

Zapping the PRAM sometimes helps, but only sometimes.

As a last resort, install a fresh system folder.

Another good one that causes startup freezes can be ATM deluxe. If you are using ATM deluxe to load your fonts then start your machine up without the extensions and delete the ATM font database file and the ATM preference file. Again these files can be corrupted and when ATM goes to load them at startup your machine just freezes.

Cheers again.

Greg

Any time I've had a problem like that, it usually did come back to an extention that was installed as part of a third-party installer.  While the restore method works just fine in getting things back to where they were supposed to be, I find it better to hunt down the extention the decided to screw up my day and eliminate it.  That way I fix the problem and also know what caused it so I don't reinstall it again.

Real easy thing to do, boot with extentions off and open the Extention Manager in your control panels.  Then Switch the settings to Mac OS Only and then click the restart.  Depending on how much you've installed, will determine how long it takes, but most of it will go rather quickly since you should end up learning your system pretty well.  Next step , (in my way of it, I'm sure others have better.), Go back into the Exten-Manager and create a new setting calling it whatever you want.  Then look at the colom headings and click the "Package" one.  The reason I like this one is you'll have an easier time determining which extentions went with it's particular app.  Since you should know what you've had loaded on your system the longest, you can usually, (not always), assume those will be okay and reactivate them.  We you get closer to the ones that are more recent, activate them one group at a time and restart after each set.  When you see the problem come back up, you'll know which set caused it and you can go back and disable it and actiate the remaining ones.  Tedious, yes, but un-complicated enough that most can easily put themselves through the process.  Once you know the offending extention, you can check with it's manufacturer/company to see if they have any new info on it and how or what to replace it with.