After crashing, multiple Cubase8.exe in processes

After crashing and force quitting cubase, none of the versions of cubase will open, they just result in a hanging .exe in the processes. “End Process” doesn’t solve this issue. I’m tired of rebooting my PC everytime this happens. HELP!

After clearing the prefs, I can see that Cubase is creating a new preferences folder, but the main splash screen never appears. Only way to fix this is to reboot