I’ve never tried the Coop mode, so can’t say anything about it.
The mentioned workaround is also not a silver bullet, there is still some randomness about the game.
Usually, when I start the game first time after booting the system, I can’t reach the main menu because ‘Logging in to Funcom Live Services’ goes into time-out after about 1 min and the game crashes to desktop without any notice. I have to wait some minutes before try again, then I usually reach the main menu, do the settings and then load the single player mode.
I know the offline mode, but for some reasons the odds are much lower that the save game actually loads than in online mode.
All in all, it is not a ‘real’ solution or satisfactory state, but at least it is sometimes usable - until Funcom releases the next hotfix, for better or worse, who knows…