game loads but then bugs out in the menu.

this occurred recently, as far as i know i have not installed or uninstalled anything since i last played but recently (4/10/23) the game started to load but wont get passed the 2 red swords unless i click the screen, then it appears to finish loading fine except then the menu also has the same error but when i click single player nothing happens, if i click a second time it can click as if the menu for campaign/skirmish etc had loaded but the hero select is entirely bugged out and i can click the thumbs up to go passed it but cant click anything inside for example the skirmish game creation screen. i tried fully uninstalling and reinstalling the game and patch 0.8.9a/b but it is still there. i tried switching to window mode, changing resolution, restarting the pc but the problem persists.

This happens if you have a windows update pending. Install the update (or get rid of it) and the game will function.