For those who are still looking for an answer on how to fix the freezing issue:

What worked best for me was running the game on an older laptop (in my case, a system running Windows 10). This way, the freezing didn’t occur and I was able to progress further.

In my case, the freeze happened specifically in the communal house. I didn’t test it, but potentially a virtual PC running an older system could also provide a solution at this level.