Premiere Elements 15 won't load - freezes and crashes

I downloaded Photoshop and premiere elements 15 in February and it has worked as expected until this week. I was working on a project Sunday - when I went back to continue working on it Tuesday, it wouldn't open the project. The Premiere elements program just shows it is loading (usually starts at somewhere between 60-80%) and then freezes and becomes unresponsive. I also tried starting a new project and the program becomes unresponsive. The only solution is to end the task.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program, and that didn't help. I have searched the forums and saw solutions about uninstalling Lavasoft Web Companion (which I confirmed I don't have) and updating graphics drivers (verified that there is no update available.) Frustrating to have an unusable product after only a few months

System Specs:

HP Spectre X360

Windows 10 Home 64-bit

Processor: Intel Core i5-7200U CPU @2.50GHZ

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 620

RAM: 8.0 GB (7.88 usable)

Hard Drive 256GB SSD (79.1 GB used of 228GB usable)