The "Server shutting down" and related bugs seem to occur a lot more if you "hit any key to continue", or, later, the continue button, and then alt-tab out to surf for a while while the game slowly loads.
It still happens if you sit there watching the game slowly load, bored out of your gourd, instead of alt-tabbing out, but it's much less consistent and loads properly that way.
This is a pure patch 8 introduction -- An Experienced Alt-Tabber-Outer
