H.264 Exports Unusable - Freezing Playback

Ever since the new update, my H.264 exports from Premiere and Media Encoder produce files that freeze during playback. 90% of the video will run smoothly, but at random points in playback the file will freeze from anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. Sound cuts out, frame freezes, while the runtime keeps going and then eventually it unsticks itself.

It's ridiculous that Premiere can't even produce an mp4 file that works. I found discussions from a few years ago sharing the same issue, but the work arounds from back then don't work on today's version of premiere. 

Hilarious that you have to pay so much for a yearly subscription for a product that doesn't work.