DC, i just had this happen to me for the first time after playing daily since launch. the only thing i did differently was today i edited my user.config file to set windshield effects to 2 and rayraced shadows to 0 in my vr configs since i can never change those.
to try and fix it, i did a full (steam) reinstall/delete of the files, and the game loaded. dropped the edited user.cfg back in and it would not. deleted it and the game loaded again. tell the devs it may be a corrupted user.cfg file. someone else said i started for them after they did a ton of controller mapping.
I have 10 different controllers connected and this started happening after I did significant rebinds to all of my controllers today. I really don’t want to lose 3 hours of work. This is incredibly frustrating.
Corrupted files seem weird though given for some of us, like me, it only happens like 1 out of 20 or so starts. So my files get corrupted every now and then, then fix themself? 
there is a program HERE that is made to grab and save the controller configs so you can back them up, but it did not find my steam install on a different drive, so YMMV. also if you have steam and do a total reinstall, those configs are NOT lost. good luck brother, i know that sucks, really hoping you dont have to remap. although it is faster the second time, dont ask me how i know.
i know, its not like this game never ever has problems with online file tranfers. i have no idea how this could EVER happen or why we dont have local copies to refrence at all times. but hey, im not the guy watching the video 15 times. oh wait.