Sudden crash on start-up steam_api64.dll Exception code: 0xc0000005

[EDesrock]

Have been playing the game for the past few days without issue. Now today it consistently crashes on startup.
Event viewer is complaining about steam_api64.dll Exception code: 0xc0000005.
Since I last played yesterday I had upgraded my Nvidia graphics driver to the latest. I rolled it back and did a clean install but still getting the same error.
I have tried:
verifying game files,
uninstalling/reinstalling the game,
removing steam_api64.dll from the install location and verifying the game files to force a re-download
removing the SonsGameSettings.cfg, Player-prev.log and Player.log files from the AppData/LocalLow directory.
*Edit: I also tried completely removing my nvidia drivers with ddu and installed the latest driver that was released today (March 18th) but still no luck

Have tried running other games (Spider Man 2, The Last Of Us) and they seem to be working fine.

Anybody else have this issue before? Have any suggestions?

Specs:
RTX4090
i7 13700K
32GB 4800 Mhz
Game is installed on 1.8TB Nvme WD drive with about 50% storage used up