There’s always the OS counterpart (stack of drivers starting from USB etc) for whatever external device and drivers you’re using, the MS steps aim to fix that side of the equation (audio troubleshooter probably checks the vendors drivers compatibility with whatever Win updates you may have also, dunno for sure). When Reaper crashed I recall the error message had a reference to ntdll.dll, this might be an indication of corrupted system files (caused by the crash or what ever happened just before it).
Then again system driver issues would usually cause more trouble than with just one plugin so it’s a bit far fetched, I know. Running SFC (system file checker) from time to time is a good practice to prevent many issues anyway, might save you from bigger trouble in the future.
I even tried disabling Cortana which I never use (it’s default is to sit in the background doing… audio detection…) but that had no effect on the issue.
The good news if you didn’t notice they’re releasing bugfix (several actually) to Scaler 2 TODAY! This is the coolest plugin ever, better than magic mushrooms 