Game crashes after 1.18 update but ran fine in 1.17 Win 8.1 Java

Game worked perfectly fine in 1.17 but after updating today to 1.18 it immediately crashes upon 100% of world load. Whether I try a new or an old world, same result. I worked with an "expert" via chat and after re-downloading the launcher several times it still crashes.

Java version 8 Windows 8.1