SQL Server Management Studio Startup
When Microsoft's SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) starts it tries to connect the Certificate Revocation List (CRL) of Microsoft:
http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicrosoftRootAuthority.crl
The underlying .NET components of SSMS are trying to contact the Certificate Revocation List and SSMS is unable to do so. This slows down the overall loading procedure. (15 seconds per certificate apparently)
Ok so here is what is happening. SSMS has a high percentage of managed code, all of this code is signed when we ship it. At start up (if this setting is checked) the .Net Runtime tries to contact crl.microsoft.com to ensure that the cert is valid(there were some fake certs issued in Microsoft’s name a while back so this is a very valid concern). If there is no internet connection or there is a problem contacting the certificate revocation list server then this will delay SSMS startup.
Reference: FAQ, Why does SSMS take 45s to start up? (MSDN Blog)
One issue that can cause this problem is that if the server does not have access to the internet, then the .NET framework can’t access the crl.microsoft.com website to verify that the digital signatures used to sign the binaries for managed applications are valid. Each certificate check has a 15 second timeout in the .NET runtime implementation. Depending on what features are installed, this can add up to a minute of startup time for Management Studio.
Reference: SQL Server Management Studio Startup Time (MSDN Blog)
Solutions
You can circumvent part of the issue, by downloading the certificate directly be entering the link into your browser and then importing the certificate to your certificate database
You can reconfigure your (company's) firewall to allow connections to Microsoft's CRL
You can reconfigure your personal antivirus/firewall to allow connections to the Microsoft CRL
You can configure your (company's) firewall to send a timeout faster to your client for requests accessing Microsoft's CRL.
You can configure IE to no longer "Check publisher's certificate revocation" in the advanced settings.
(See above mentioned blogs 1 and 2 for details)
Best Answer
I'm not sure of a way to do this 'natively' in SSMS, but I've been using SSMS Boost for years and it has that functionality (and a whole lot more). It's a plugin for SSMS and they have a 'free' community version that just needs to be re-downloaded every few months.
Check here and scroll down until you see Download links (updated on 14-th of March 2017):
After installation, there will be a new menu bar option 'SSMSBoost'. Click on the menu bar and select 'Settings'. Then look for 'Preferred Connections'. There, you will have a checkbox to open a defined connection on SSMS startup.
You can 'add' preferred connections by clicking the 'plus' sign at the bottom of the screen. Preferred connections also allow you to specify an 'Important DB Alert' that will actually be displayed on new query windows - I use mine to inform me I'm in a 'production' database.