Did you get a chance to test it? I also have "Mute sound when not focused" off and haven't experienced and freezes myself but this is a bit worrying. I mean I expect the game to have issues at this stage (broken quests, graphic glitches etc.) but the game causing hardware issues...ouch!
It finally downloaded, took the whole day because the servers are very slow atm. I played a bit but haven't had any freezing with the option still enabled. Once I'm able to reproduce it, I'll test by disabling the option. Sometimes the problem just doesn't occur, it probably takes more playing to get it but I don't have the time right now.
Hardware issues? You mean you're concerned by the 100% SSD usage? That'd be concerning for sure.
