This problem occurs after the combat in the Blighted Village that takes place in front of the windmill with Fezzerk. If I utilize the non-lethal strikes toggle to attempt to knock out Fezzerk, when combat ends, the party automatically attempts to start conversation with Fezzerk and are unable to because he is unconscious. After this point I am unable to speak to any npcs, including my party members. Loading into a new area does not help to fix the issue, and the problem persists with all NPCs across the map.
I was able to recreate this bug multiple times.
I did not have this issue if I did not use the non-lethal strikes option and managed to reduce Fezzerk to the necessary range while keeping him conscious.
This issue appears to be directly tied to the game attempting to queue up conversation with an unconscious character. It's safe to assume this same issue can happen for any other automatic post-combat dialogue that attempts to trigger with an unconscious character.