> Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:54:07 -0500
> From: Mario Valencia <mariovalspi@gmail.com>
>
> running emacs -Q on windows 8
> tried (play-sound '(sound :file "c:/users/mario/desktop/whatever.wav"))
> in *scratch* buffer.
> if the file exists, it works fine. if the file does not exist, emacs crashes.

I cannot reproduce this (but I don't have access to Windows 8).  The
latest pretest version of 24.4 signals an error saying

   This Emacs binary lacks sound support

Emacs 24.3 instead displays an error message about failed sound
command and asks to verify that the file exists.

Can show the C-level backtrace from the crash, by running Emacs under
a debugger?