I think I found the problem & it seems to be related to Audio ASIO hardware in this case. Hindsight is 20/20 & I think I know what I did…
During a multi-track recording session I had been using 2 linked Delta 1010 sound cards to allow me to record more than 8 tracks simultaneously. For mixing purposes, I only need one delta 1010, so I removed the second sound-card (I’m not sure I needed to remove it but have had issues in the past with syncing & word clock when linking 2 together so I thought better to just remove one after not needing it anymore)
Somewhere it was mentioned that the error might be related to audio drivers (thank you John) So I went back to preferences & changed my audio hardware from the Delta ASIO to “Sound Mapper”, right clicked in the area and no crash! I then reset the audio device back to the Delta 1010 ASIO & no crash! It was just a lucky try…but seems to be working for now. Apparently Vegas Software was looking for the second sound-card even though the hardware and drivers were removed, I guess because when I created the projects I had both instances of the sound-card in the project. So it seems that what I did “refresh” the software….