Solved it! Turns out a good old-fashioned "Repair game" from within Origin did the trick 🙂
@umbranator Try disabling your antivirus/firewall temporarily, just to test. This could be a permissions issue. Please also trash the new Electronic Arts folder in Documents (not the one with your saves, the new one that was just created) to reset the permissions. If this is an antivirus issue, you can set exceptions for Origin.exe and TS4_x64.exe.
It's worth looking into your Controlled Folder Access settings as well. Normally there's a specific error associated with this kind of block, but it's easy enough to set exceptions for the game and Origin:
https://crinrict.com/blog/2019/03/windows-10-defender-controlled-folder-access.html
Solved it! Turns out a good old-fashioned "Repair game" from within Origin did the trick 🙂
