I have found a solution, but it is not something one should ever have to do. This game simply cannot work with so many processing cores. So, once the game starts, and before moving to character select, pull up Task Manager, go to the "Details" tab, right-click on the game, and select "Set Affinity" It'll show 32 CPUs. Select 4, or possibly 8 of them.
I suspect users of top-end Intel i9 CPUs will be having similar problems. The game is not coded to run properly on high-core/thread-count CPUs.
Note to Square-Enix: THIS IS NOT A FIX. IT IS A WORKAROUND FOR YOUR SLOPPY CODE. FIX IT.