Finder and system freeze and crash

I'm out of my league when it comes to troubleshooting this kind of problem. I don't know where to begin with the crash logs or understand what I'm reading there, so perhaps I can find some tips here.

Because it seems related to a workflow involving Adobe Lightroom I'm also inquiring in Adobe-related fora.

Any insights welcome.

2018 Intel Mac mini, 12.6.1, 32GB, LrC 12.1

Troubles seem to start sometime after downloading Lumix GH6 video and RAW files from a CFeType B card. One thing I notice in Lightroom, related or not, is a ! warning on a few files that I may not be able to make changes to those files so marked. Doesn't seem to be true, but maybe there's something invisible below the surface of that warning.

Maybe this and the crash described next are related to something with the card itself. Angelbird (card mfr.) pointed their finger at Lightroom, so no help there. Again, I don't know how to read crash reports.)

Later, after importing, and/or doing other non-LR work, when I attempt to eject the card from the reader (ProGrade, no firmware update available) I get a spinning beach ball and my Finder is frozen - can't eject anything, or close any finder window. Force quitting processes from Activity monitor or otherwise makes no difference. If I relaunch Finder, I never get my desktop or any finder windows back. When I attempt a restart, I lose everything onscreen, but it remains gray and my only option is a hard shutdown via long press on the Mac mini start button. Doesn't seem good. Upon starting up again, I'm able to eject the card without problem and do so immediately.

I've erased the card a couple of times. I've not yet tried a deep format. Maybe it's not even the card. I've not yet tried swapping the card reader type-c cable and I guess I could my other CFeB card, though the possibility of these hard shutdowns spook me and want to limit them.

I no longer have Apple Care on the Mini; maybe I should look into it. Upgrading to Ventura is way too soon given various plug-ins and audio and video production I do.

Thanks for reading.