Hello, after downloading the latest patch today I once again had the same problem: Initially the game loaded until the starting screen, then froze, and I had to force close it. After 2 attempts it froze immediately after starting the game in the launcher right before the Square Enix logo should appear. I disconnected my controller (playing on laptop), closed other programs like Steam or Discord, restarted my laptop, etc. In the end I just waited for about 15 minutes on that black screen and eventually the game started. No problems with logging in. I reconnected my controller, again no problems.
So in the end, it seems like the game simply takes an unreasonably long time to start right after a major patch download.