Did the following happen to anyone else?  
I bought the game on Steam.
I went to launch the game last night and it had to update. No biggie. Finished in about an hour. Now when I try to play I can get in the game and load my save, I get the load screen with the skull and crown logo them BAM back to desktop/launcher. 
Does that on all saves. I can start a new game though.  Any suggestions on things to try and how not to jepordize my saves?  I was afraid to even start a new game in fear it would clear out my save list. 
 
I also went to Steam Tools and downloaded a tool that was called Wictcher DLC, didn't help. I was hoping I still had more patch to DL but I think I got it all.  I also save my steam client/steamapps on a diffrent drive them my OS and my saved games default to my OS, My Documents Folder.  Perhaps Steam / Witcher isn't bridging that gap to my saved files?

Verify your file integrity. If that doesn't work delete and reinstall it. I've never had an issue with the automatic steam updates.