"Failed to connect to instance" crash to login screen

about 5 times in the last hour, the game will crash to login screen when I try to go to a new zone. It has happened going to Dried Lake, and back to town from Dried Lake, and while using portal scroll.

Crashes to login screen and says Failed to connect to instance.

Try logging in, and it crashes to login screen again with same error but then goes to character to selection screen with NOTHING but the artwork of the people standing in the dark ship. No character list or anything, just the artwork. Can't click on anything. Can't exit the game. Just stays on that screen until I CTRL-ALT-DEL to end the poe running.

Restarting game and trying again just causes the same crashes above.

Has happened 2 more times today. Same result, get stuck at character select screen with nothing to click on, escape doesn't work, have to CTRL-ALT-DEL to quit the game. Won't let me log back in, keeps saying Failed to Connect to Instance. Used way point to go to Lioneye's Watch from Act 4.

This game is now unplayable. I don't understand what is going on, but the past 3 days I have yet to be able to play the game. Every time I go to a different zone, the game crashes saying "Failed to Connect to Instance" and when I try to log back in, it crashes on loading to the character selection screen except that there is nothing to click on and I have to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to quit the game.

This coming immediately after I bought points for more stash tabs... I know this looks like a conspiracy theory in the making, but come on guys, please fix this.

Tried to play several times today, same errors.