Finally, some useful communication.
I indeed have only 16 GB RAM. However, I refuse to take it out of the box that it is the reason why the game crashes because it did not crash at all from release day until the end of 2020. So it cannot be the fact alone that I am having 16 GB of RAM, unless - and I repeat UNLESS - something VERY demanding was added with one of the updates. On the other hand, there are numerous reports from users with 32 even 64 GB of RAM about the exact same kinds of crashes.
Graphics card. I have the Nvidia MSI 1070 - an oldie but goldie -, which I find reliable. It never gave me a headache. It is getting outdated but so far I have not felt that it’s bottlenecking my gaming. I could run all games I wanted to play without issues. DCS, a number of P3D versions, racing games, FPS games and so on. While there are way more powerful cards out there, it cannot be the cause of the crashes since MSFS did perform very well on my system from release day until the end of last year. If my card was not up to the task, I should have experienced the issues right from the start.
USB ports failing is a good point, I actually thought of that. But the question is, why all of us here suddenly have faulty USB ports? Nonetheless, it is something worth looking into, for sure.
I also take into consideration a possible failing graphics card or perhaps a dying PSU. But again, it is unlikely that suddenly, all of us have this issue. Because it seems obvious we are experiencing the same problem: VCRUNTIME140.DLL being it.
All of my crashes - 100% of them - are VCRUNTIME140.DLL crashes and they occur early on in the game. Therefore it is logical to assume it’s the devs that introduced something that takes a toll on some systems while leaving others untouched. Or alternatively - but again, unlikely - failing hardware. But in that case, other, clear signs should also appear and that is why I don’t think it’s the actual cause. Nonetheless, I will get my PC checked by experts soon, to rule out a possible hardware failure.