I Know how it feels to find out a game you paid for has become free for a limited time, and how bad you will feel when cause off that the servers are to crowded and therefore crashed.
But don't take this out to EA as it was Epic Games that has put up that free sale ( which they do every week or so with different games). Please trust the techs to have this issue fixed ASAP.
I to found that the game did not connect to the online servers, so there are 2 things we can do right now =1, Wait for the techs to fix this S**T - 2, Play and mess around in the offline campaign. For me there is a third option, Going back into SW:TOR and kill some time in the PvP there. For all the other players out there, have faith for tech support, they are working they're butt of so we can all enjoy a fun bit of mayhem this weekend... May the Force be with you