zone building error with soft-freezing the game like sad ice cream

Playing mutant human, got the quest to go to Grit Gate. The surface of Grit Gate was fine, but when I tried to descend to the 1st strata below surface, I received a zone building error. (sorry if I auto-reported it a million times, I tried to figure out the issue myself) I asked the game to try to get it to stop and force build it, and it gave me what seemed like a valid level, but none of the mobs would move around and one of the chests was not something I could interact with. When I tried to leave the strata in any way, all explored areas went dark like they do when you no longer have line of sight and my sprite disappeared. I was then unable to get the game to follow almost any prompts, such as moving or going to any menu like inventory or escape menu. The game did respond the normal ALT function, though, if that matters. I had to ALT+F4 out of the game, reloaded my last save and tried again, this time wishing to "rebuild" once I was on the floor that had issues building - but when I did that, it would soft freeze me again, just as though I had tried to leave the zone in any way as mentioned above.

Other things I have tried:
Rebuilding the surface of Grit Gate in hopes that it would allow for better connection 1 strata below (it didn't)
Picking up the one chest that would not let me interact with it (lol, I was suddenly attacked by half a dozen mirthworms that attacked me so frequently it basically froze the game)
Being sad (moderate success here, but it didn't help the game, unfortunately)

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