Similar here. Have a proj with about 30 instruments, kontakt, halion, others. Plays great. Made a template from that proj after emptying the pool and deleting all clips.
Created a new file from the template, dragged only audio files in, asioguard goes crazy, meters are popping but no audio coming out. Try to change asioguard to high, cubase crashes.
Open the old proj, still plays back fine with lots of instruments. Load the new file, same symptoms.