Same is happening to me, I just recently downloaded UE and tried to do some basic things, but I cant load my project and the error message says the same thing as yours. And nobody seems to know why? Ive checked with google but Im unable to find anyone who fixed this issue
I had the same issue! Luckily I had a backup of my level without my recent changes. And I replaced the map, I assume that you could probably backup the default map and replace it with an empty level just to be able to get into your project. For me, one of the assets for and enemy was causing the crash and if I interacted with any of the related assets my project would crash.
What I did to fix: I basically just ended up re-importing the character’s assets, everything from the animations to the mesh. Toward the end of experimentation I found out that it might have been the mesh, or even the skeletal mesh that had caused this whole ordeal. With the re-import it worked just fine.
After that, just add your level backup back into the project and you should be able to start right where you left off.
I don’t see why it’s just a work around, I’m assuming that the update from 4.18 to 4.19 caused this. Reimporting is a legitimate way to solve an issue like this. Also, upgrading your project to 4.19 typically makes a copy of your project. Additionally very few static meshes are made in unreal using unreal tools, so you would have to have a backup. Since he probably made them in a separate software.
I ended up rebuilding the whole project from scratch to be able to see which asset caused the issue. I also had multiple errors when i tried to build the game in 4.18 so i thought that would be the best option for me.