Du kan lägga till style="display:none" på div-taggen så döljs den från start.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<script type="text/javascript">
function hide_menu(id){
document.getElementById(id).style.display = "none";
}
function show_menu(id){
document.getElementById(id).style.display = "block";
}
function googleTranslateElementInit() {
new google.translate.TranslateElement({
pageLanguage: 'sv',
layout: google.translate.TranslateElement.InlineLayout.SIM PLE
}, 'google_translate_element');
}
</script>
<script src="//translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateElementInit"></script>
</head>
<body>
<a href="#" onclick="if (document.getElementById('google_translate_element ').style.display=='none') show_menu('google_translate_element'); else hide_menu('google_translate_element');"><img src="png/translate.png"></a>
<div id="google_translate_element" style="display:none"></div>
</body>
</html>