I'm getting exactly the same issues with fairly repeatable crashes when pano stitching; CO isn't running, and this persists after a fresh restart. Latest Affinity, Win10, nVidia Studio driver etc etc.
This is going to be a _really_ major issue for loads of CO-Affinity users who don't want to go down the Adobe route for whatever reason (e.g. Fuji shooters). Basically, we're all going to bale and go for DXO, or whatever...
I have posted an enquiry message on the CO forum support page, quoting selected messages on here, and it's going to be interesting to see what emerges. Like many people, I have a big CO commitment/investment, so we won't be switching from that.