Game freezes, crashes, and steam.exe file no longer works

I have been playing Gal Civ 4 for 40 hours with no issue. On Sunday I attempted to play, and the game froze when I pressed play on the launcher screen. After a couple of minutes frozen, it crashed completely. I then got a popup that said, "Problem with shortcut - The item 'steam.exe' that this shortcut refers to has been changed or moved, so this shortcut will no longer work properly. Do you want to delete this shortcut?" 

I tried absolutely every fix I could find for similar issues online. None worked. I finally had to uninstall Steam and reinstall it just so that I could open it again. This issue did not happen with any of my other games after reinstalling. Tonight I tried to open Gal Civ 4 again and the same error occurred. I had to uninstall and reinstall Steam for a second time just so that I could open it. 

What can I do to fix this? I'm scared to even click on the game icon again because I'm afraid I'll have to reinstall Steam for a third time.