carreer: crash 2nd season first 3D race

Hi

I played carreers beyond 2nd season before without any problems. But now I'm all set for my second season but can't ride any 3D race.

Specs:
FDJ, carreer mode, my first 3D-race of the 2nd season
race loads (dos Santos), the director waves his flag and between 1 and 5 seconds later the game crashes
I use the expansion DB (and patches), but never changed it manually

I looked around on the forums and tried all of the following:
set graphics to minimum
when trying to ride the as a single race (the same variant) instead of in carreer mode: it works
quicksim works, but then when trying to 3D the next race: same issue
camera in helicopter view: still crashes
selecting my own and other riders before the start: doesn't crash any earlier, but once gave a full blue screen (all riders seemed to have normal shirts on)
selected different riders and no doctor for the race: still crashes

I can only assume there's something wrong with the carreer DB, but I have no idea where exactly to look. Can you give me a lead? Thanks a lot.

Added: replay is already deactivated and now I did a quicksim up to the next stage race (instead of the next stage) and same issue.

Since last season was OK I tried it with an old save game from before 25th of October but that didn't help.

Disabling anti-virus didn't help.

I'd check the carreer DB myself, if I had any idea where to look. Anyone know what is triggered 1 second after the start? Thanks a lot!