It seems to get all the way to the point where the transition from loading screens to the game being loaded, if that makes sense. And yes, download straight from AB.
I have no other mods installed as I had been playing the plain vanilla version for a while.
I have .NET 4.7.1 and both Visual C++. I also verified the game integrity through Steam with no joy... May have to delete the install and start over from the verified version.