Loading Screen Crashes out at ~25% - Need For Speed Heat

Currently waiting on a "verify/repair" to complete, but I am just now getting around to actually playing this game - I launch the game, get in to the menu, hit "Play Solo", it goes to a loading screen, and about 1/4 of the way through the loading bar, it has an audio stutter, the screen freezes for a second, then the game closes/crashes with no error screen or anything, back to desktop.

Should be noted this computer runs literally every game I throw at it just fine, it is NOT overclocked in any way as it doesn't need to be to run games, especially games like this.

Specs are as follows:

AMD 5950X, Asus Crosshair VIII Hero, 4x8GB G.Skill RAM (running at 3600 CL14 which is lower than it's spec), eVGA RTX 3090 Kingpin w/HC Block on it, eVGA 1200W P2 PSU, game is on a Samsung 980 Pro M.2 SSD (Windows is on a different drive), Samsung Odyssey G9 Monitor (5120 x 1440 @ 120Hz for the game settings)

I'm sure there's some thread here already about how to fix this, but I searched the phrase "crash on loading screen" and didn't find anything that matched what I'm experiencing, so wondering what would be the recommended things to check next if this verify/repair doesn't work.

Things I've already done:

Closed MSI Afterburner, disabled Origin In-Game Overlay, disabled HDR - none of these made the issue go away, and it happens at the same area of the loading bar every time, about 1/4 of the way through.  I don't have a dedicated Anti-Virus software running other than what's included with Windows, as having one running in the background causes issues for some other games I play.