SimNationJan

Make sure no aditional audiomanagers are installed. (Like Alienware Audio, ASUS Sonic Studio, etc). (Realtek Audio is fine, that's the main driver)

Check that the Audio Depth is set to 16 bit.

If this happened after a Windows Update, reinstall your audio drivers.

It simply disabled the functions of the mod while allowing for the bare minimum of it to run, and allows you to open the save game and continue playing it

Did you save the game after you started the mod? And are now trying to launch that save without the mod? That is usually what causes the issue with Real Time mod. I do believe that the mod itself does offer a ghost mode which would allow you to run the save again but without the mod being fully active

Honestly looking at it, I would say your issue is the space elevator. Those produce huge amounts of passengers, as such your network might just not be able to cope with the influx. Passengers are still entering and exiting the vehicles, but the capacity is lacking to take all of them as quickly as they arrive from the space elevator.

Do you use any mods to unlock the buildings first? Otherwise, you will have to reach milestones for them first before being able to use them.
Most campus DLC buildings require to be placed within a Campus Zone. You can access that in the zone painter.

Do you have any mods enabled that deal with vehicle selection?

Originally posted by Mytwo Centsworth: I'm not much of an asset hoarder and even switch off those I don't need for a specific map or city so they don't have to load.

It generally takes 3 to 8 minutes to load - my computer's not exactly a Formula 1. I'm just wondering how much of the game is on my hard drive, which should be a consistent load speed, and how much I have to pull down from the cloud every time, for which time can vary as everybody and their dog is doing Netflix on a Saturday night slowing down the internet as a whole.

All the game's files are stored on your hard drive. The only thing saved on the cloud would be your save games if you enabled that option, however, those are small files.