Using the Aesthetician forces me to perform a hard reboot

Hi, I haven't seen this discussed anywhere after some searching.
Basically, I can load the customisation area up at which point only the borders of customisation options are present (no thumbnails load), some of the options (such as hairstyles) will preview on my character as normal but not all.

I cannot save changes or exit customisation at all, there is no response to clicking on the buttons.

I'm forced to alt+f4 the game, at which point the process cannot be shut down from the task manager and the performance of my PC drops drastically.

Attempting to restart windows will just get stuck on the 'shutting down applications' screen at which point I have to hard reset the computer.

I'm running Windows 7 64bit and I've just reinstalled from scratch recently (non-steam). I've been having no issues anywhere other than with the Aesthetician.

I would normally run a file check but there seems to be no way to do this from the login client. Am I stuck with just trying a fresh install again or has someone else had this issue and managed to fix it somehow?
I would appreciate any help anyone can offer. :)