Changing difficulty can destroy buildings

Mode: Single player
Problem: Bug (or two)

I started a new single player game on normal after launch, and at some point yesterday decided to swap the difficulty to easy for a second to check the difference in a couple of settings. Apparently, easy has decay turned on by default now (bug?), which caused most of my base to instantly self destruct around me. The Lesser Wheel and a few random things sitting on the ground survived, yet labeled decayed.

Given that my local game had been running less than a day, it shouldn’t have accumulated enough decay to collapse either way.

This leads me to think objects are storing a null decay rating when it’s disabled, which is thus interpreted as failure when feature is enabled. I’m guessing things should have full decay “health” in the event the setting is swapped?

Reproduction:

1- Start new SP game on decadent
2- Build some stuff and wait. May also need to exit/restart game?
3- Change difficulty to civilized, or presumably just turn on decay.

I really hope this isn’t an intentional design because some players would actually like to keep there structures when decay is turned on.