Crash to Desktop since 1.8.0

Crash to Desktop since last patch

I'm a pretty consistent player of this game (80+ hours), and I'm pretty familiar with troubleshooting pc issues, but this last patch has me completely mystified on random crashes to desktop. Here's my PC Specs:

CPU: i9-13900k (Yes my mobo bios has been set to intel spec 307a, 253w, etc.)

RAM: 64GB DDR5-6800mhz (downclocked to 6200mhz for ultra stability [MemTest])

OS: Win 11 - latest patch

SSD: Samsung 980

Monitors: Triple 4k @ DLSS Ultra Performance

All 706 files successfully validated via Steam

Windows Event Viewer reports the following:

Faulting application name: WRC.exe, version: 4.27.2.0, time stamp: 0x66302885
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.22621.3374, time stamp: 0xeae8eecc
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x000000000010c169
Faulting process id: 0x0x18B8
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DAA592B91B26BF
Faulting application path: I:\Steam\steamapps\common\EA SPORTS WRC\WRC\Binaries\Win64\WRC.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: d3129ccc-8952-44b4-8811-b019df4a209f
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

There is no application crash data present in ...WRC\Saved\Crashes for this date.

The crash randomly occurs when I click on "Run Game" (Steam) -- the intro music and video plays, and as soon as the menu would appear (it doesn't), the game crashes. Running a few times seems to randomly work?

I've never had a CTD for EAWRC like this before, and I've not updated any hardware or drivers before the previous patch, which never had any crash to desktop. Please advise.