I have had a similar problem on my Captain from level 56, at which I also parked it (because of the annoyance). What I have found out, with the help from Turbine is, that the culprit is my newest Legendary weapon. There seems to be a known problem with some Legendaries that they are working on (most problems seem to be with Warden Legendaries), and the suggestion was to put all the non-bound Legendaries to your bank until the fix is made. Of course that doesn't help with the Legendaries that you are using, as they cannot be put into your vault, and you would be fighting with your bare hands anyway.
Unequipping them to my bag helps in my case, but might not for others, expecially if the bug affects toons that don't even have Legendaries yet.
Just for comparison, the bug I have crashes to desktop when loading the toon, and sometimes takes even 10 tries, sometimes I can log into the toon on the first try. Some others have been avoiding the bug by logging into an alt first, but for me it didn't help at all. Also it's one single toon from 12 total on 2 servers. Not a single crash otherwise in months, and I play quite a few hours every day.
Hope this helps.
Bravery calls my name, in the sound of the wind in the night. My sword will drink blood, and I will fight, yes I will fight, in the Dawn of Battle!
- Manowar, Dawn of Battle