I can only replicate it running the Skippy at limerock... When I am in a server.. any server if for any reason more than 15 people join the server it will crash/lock up. As long as it stays below 16 I am ok.. as the 16th joins poof. I can also join any server with more than 15 and as the cars load when the 16th loads poof.
Funny, I got got over this in rf. From what I could google, with large fields, it is because you run out of ram. Nothing I found was definitively the answer. I copied over a backed up plr, turned off replays, made sure my video/system ram was correct in the ini, freed up drive space. Of the 2 races I've run so far, no issues. First time it happened presumably because I ran out of drive space while running a 2.4 hr long event (compounded by telemetry logging and full replay). The next I had enough free space, but still crashed out with runtime. The next race I will turn replays back on.
Getting lots of these as well, Skippy at Limerock, even when only 10 people are online. Happened just now after joining, earlier when trying to return to the classification screen. Edit: Always happens while adding car 12 or 13 in the classification screen. Reducing graphic settings fixed it.
I've had this problem and never managed to solve it... Some say it's not enough ram and some say it's video card related... I'm not upgrading my pc just to find out if it will work or not, because other games seem to run just fine.
Where before it crashed with 13 players, after reducing some settings (opponent detail also) running with 30 grid yesterday worked.