Hi,
Ok, lets try starting the editor directly. Use the File Explorer to find the following file.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 12\PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe"
Its size should be about 38,526 KB - try double clicking on that to launch the editor. It maybe a good idea to restart your system in case a process has got stuck and prevents the editor from loading.
You should be able to find the event viewer by bring up the windows 8 search and entering "event viewer". I'm interested in seeing if there are any errors in the Windows logs.
One other thing, if you are new to Photoshop Elements, I suggest you load the organizer and go to the Edit menu, select Preferences -> Media Analysis. Uncheck all the options to start with as that can take up a lot of processing.
Brian