This has also happened to me quite a few times over the last couple of days. I've noticed it seems to happen specifically when I try to inspect someone who is not in the same Zone/Instance as me. So for example - someone in my Guild that is not standing beside me - the client does a complete hard-freeze as GameClient.exe…
I ran into this same problem yesterday and then again today. I started from the beginning with a party and once we defeated the 2nd boss and interacted with the column, it appeared to fall but no one was able to move up the column...