I have an effective workaround / solution.
It's a bit of a headache, but all you need to do is transcode the footage to a non-compressed format. This will yield much larger files but resolve your problems, and I believe it's a best practices thing to do anyway (see below for more thoughts).
I'm working on a 1080p 30fps project now that was filmed in MPEG4 / h.264. It's a .mov container, but that format can be found in a few containers, including .mov, .mpg, .avi, and .h264.
Change your sequence format (this will make rendered sequence previews not crash Premiere)
1. Right click on the sequence in the bin and select Sequence Settings.
A. Preview File Format: Quicktime
B. Codec: ProRes 422 LT (more on that below)
C. Press OK and OK to the prompt.
Transcoding can be done in two main ways.
1. Using Adobe Media Encoder (my suggestion).
2. Using Create Proxies in Premiere (make SURE you select an uncompressed format if you go this route).
Note: I don't advise this route because it won't change your source media and I feel like you may run into other issues because this is a Premiere level incompatibility (see below for more thoughts on that).
1. Import ALL of your compressed media from your project into Adobe Media Encoder.
A. Select all in the queue.
B. Click any of the Preset settings - middle blue text column in queue.
C. Click okay to the prompt.
D. Choose the following settings
Preset: Apple ProRes 422 LT - *1 (No need for 444 color in like 99% of projects, but if you're not sure figure out what camera it was filmed with and if it films in 444 color space, if you don't know it's almost definitely 422 or below)
Video (all settings in here should be left to match source)
Use Maximum Render Quality (CHECK)
F. With everything still selected click any of the blue text in the Output File column in Queue - right blue text.
G. Create a NEW folder and aim your footage to that (I name it Decompressed), and make SURE you remove the "_1" after the file name.
H. Click OK then click Render (top right play button in the Queue window).
F. Go treat yourself to a snack or maybe even step outside and look for a bright round object in the sky, I've heard about it but never seen it ... what's it called, oh yeah, "sun."
2. Replace footage in Premiere.
A. Select ALL the footage you've recompressed.
B. Right click and select Make Offline (DO NOT delete the originals)
C. On the still selected footage right click and select Link Media.
D. On the bottom right corner click Locate and navigate to your Decompressed folder (check Display Only Exact Name Matches to make your life easier). Then select the matching file name and press OK. Premiere will reconnect everything automatically.
NOTE: You might need to deselect File Extension from the Match File Properties if you're not seeing your footage here.
F. CONFIRM your work by selecting any of the replaced footage and right clicking on it and selecting Properties. The second line should now read Type: Quicktime Movie - not MPEG movie. If it reads MPEG movie then you've accidentally reselected your original footage or made another mistake first try unlinking and reconnecting.
And you're done! Good job - you definitely deserve cake.
In general it is best practice to work in uncompressed formats, I have seen a host of random problems caused by working in compressed formats. A super brief synopsis as to why is because MPEG uses reference frames and instructions to direct how each pixel has changed after, this can mean for every 30+ frames there's only 1 actual picture that is being used and the rest is instructions on how that picture changed. This is perfectly fine for watching videos, but it yields problems when you're in an editor and you're working with fabricated frames, therefore it's best to have them in an uncompressed format that'll have one-for-one frame accuracy and no fabricated frames.
I suspect strongly it has to do with Premiere's new reliance on Intel's integrated graphics (I know this because on my other machine it complained about integrated graphics needing to be updated). Most graphics cards come with a built in MPEG decoder, this is great for many things, but it causes weird problems in editing programs. Even when you direct Premiere to use your dedicated graphics card it will often put a huge load on the Intel integrated graphics card, I wish there was some program level way to force it to use it as using the Nvidia control panel and even right clicking on the program and telling it to use the main graphics card doesn't work.
Final thoughts: Adobe, I'm super glad you're innovating and trying to make things better for us. I know you're striving to make things faster by relying on hardware acceleration and that's great. But you can't count on that working for EVERY variation of computer, so a little more user control would be super helpful, like the ability to turn off Intel integrated graphics reliance from the preferences.
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