I downloaded and installed the game, then tried to start it in the GOG window using the "Play" button.
It crashes on the second screen of startup, where the glowing oval comes up.

I owned the classic BG and extensions which I ran with no problems on the same system except I now have an SSD instead of a hard drive. Is there a workaround? I will try an uninstall and reinstall but it takes a long time.

You should provide more information about your system (OS, hardware, etc.) in order to get help.
You don't even stated which game of the series you are talking about: I will assume it's Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition.

Does your system possibly have an integrated graphic card? If yes, I suggest you to read here.
Basically you must go into the game's installation directory, search for the engine.lua file, open it with a text editor and add the following line: Then save the file and run the game.

Beware: Galaxy may want to automatically update the game's files, hence deleting your modification. In this case you either have to stop using it or disabling the auto-update feature.

the first screen of enhanced edition should say 'Beamdog' and the second says "Dungeons & Dragons" with the camera starting zoomed in on the "&"... if that is what you get then the lens flair around the & is the cause and that is bound to be the system Gpu \ driver

if you have more than 1 Gpu installed [like most laptops] then check which Gpu the game uses to start with... also see if Microsoft updates have highjacked your drivers