Game “not responding” upon initial launch; thereafter Steam says its always running

Hi, I just got a new PC system with an up to date GPU (16GB VRAM). When i installed Last Epoch, the game doesnt respond upon launch and crashes. Thereafter, Steam permanently says that the game is running, and will simply say “stopping” upon click.

Notably, on PC shutdown and restart, when Steam is restarted, Last Epoch is still said to be running. There does not appear to be a clear line item in task manager to force end the background program.

Help, I cannot do anything else via Steam, as only a factory reset allows me to break this loop.