Thanks for the detailed response! I just made a new build here which reliably crashes for me when choosing "Play" from the main menu. (ie press A twice) I included the elf -- let me know if there's anything else I can supply that would be helpful in tracking it down! (I'm also in the Playdate Squad discord as "Jesse Rusak" if that's easier.)
I should also say that for a long time we've had strange audio-related behavior which we think has something to do with how we're handling memory around synths or other audio objects. This was one case I tracked down but I am pretty sure there are others. The strangest is one where the all our synths suddenly become much louder than expected -- sometimes when we first start playing them, sometimes later, sometimes when locking and unlocking the playdate (which is especially strange since we have no code which runs for the lock/unlock events). This behavior appears or goes away when making changes to unrelated code so I suspect some kind of memory or race issue which is sensitive to code layout or fine-grained timing. I am kinda hoping this might be the same underlying issue.