I've had the issues occur pretty much everywhere, from the summoning bell outside my house, to busy cities, to Bozja, etc. It doesn't seem to be affected by the amount of people nearby from what I've seen.

Can you elaborate what you mean by "changes"? The only things I have deliberately done that I can think of are to install Windows Updates as they have been rolled out, tried to keep my drivers up to date, etc. I have not installed any new hardware or anything of that nature.