For want of posting this to all the various Mac software sites I go to, or MacFixit where it will disappear behind a pay per view wall, I thought I'd put this here.
I downloaded the latest version of Google Earth for Mac OS X and it didn't work. It would start up and before the Earth showed it would unexpectedly quit. I deleted the other Google Earth files that were around from the old version (in Application Support and Preferences) and this had no effect.
After checking the Internet I found a number of similar comments - and quite a few more saying everything worked fine.
So, just in case, I moved the application to the Desktop (rather than in the folder where I'd filed it) and it worked fine. Now it's in my Applications folder but I think the problem may have been that it was in a folder with a space in it i.e. it was in a folder called "My Applications ƒ". Either that or it was the non-standard character on the end of the folder name.
They may fix this with the next version or other people may have mentioned a similar fix but I thought I'd mention it in case it helps someone (figuring if anyone indexes Blogger it would be Google!).
S :)
