Freezing with in-game Menus

Game freezes when attempting to open popup menus in game (e.g., take photo, cook, fabricate, and basically anything that opens up a menu within the game). Unpredictable. The menu itself won't actually show up, so the game screen is just faded with no way to backtrack or exit the menu that the game failed to open. Only solution I have found is the minimize the game window, press exit (to force quit via the computer, because the game screen is faded and you can't click on anything), then maximize the game window, then save and exit. Or, I suppose, you could just force quit through task manager. Hot keys don't work, and - as I said - since the game screen is faded because there's supposed to be a popup menu - you can't click on anything in the game itself.