After running an update on my Macbook Pro, my linux VMs stopped allowing me to login and would simply crash. I contacted VMware support and they advised that the update, along with Fusion update 5.02, don’t play very well together due to a graphics driver issue. See the short post: http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2012/11/macbook-air-and-macbook-pro-update-2-0-and-vmware-fusion-5.html.
The workaround requires that you go into Settings > Display and turn off “Accelerate 3D Graphics”. While this fix works just fine, it hampers your ability to work in the Linux VM due to the fact that you can’t resize the VM’s work area.
After a little back and forth with support, they suggested that I downgrade my VMware Fusion installation to 5.01, which can be found at this link: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=FUS-501-EN&productId=294 (you’ll have to login to MyVMware to download), and let them know how it behaves.
So far, after downgrading to VMware Fusion 5.01, and re-enabling “Accelerate 3D Graphics”, everything appears to be back to fully operational. Give this a try if you’re having trouble.
I’m running Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 Desktop, and this affected both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Hope this saves someone some pain.
NOTE: You may have to reinstall VMware tools.
Thanks to VMware Support for the help and workaround until an update can be made. 
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