I am having a similar issue, but I can load into the game, get the guild MOTD, then no more chat, and its like I have lost the network connection. I cant select any targets and when thrusting forward, the ship moves but the engine doesn't light up. The client isn't crashing tho. I have tried resetting updates, running Net7 as admin, and running the client in windows XP mode. I have Win 7 64 bit and the it was working fine last night.
Update: Looks like the problem is happening with 1 specific character. Seems to be working OK on a different one.