Trying to install ESXi 5.5 on Workstation 12 Pro and getting "A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter the shutdown state."

Trying to install ESXi 5.5 on Workstation 12 Pro and getting this error while the installer is loading:

A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter the shutdown state. If this fault had occurred outside of a virtual machine, it would have caused the physical machine to restart. The shutdown state can be reached by incorrectly configuring the virtual machine, a bug in the guest operating system, or a problem in VMware Workstation.

Click OK to restart the virtual machine or Cancel to power off the virtual machine.

I have changed to EFI BIOS and I am booting from a physical USB stick that is passed through to the virtual machine. The EFI BIOS allows me to select the menu item "EFI USB Device" which lets me boot from the USB that I passed through.

I would like to install the ESXi in workstation, but this fault is not making it happen. When I created the virtual machine  I chose VMware ESX as the type and VMware ESXi 5 as the version. Gave it 4 GB of memory, 2 processors with 1 core each and a 8 GB HD.