Hi,
Just got the game, but fortunately I have two video cards. NVIDIA GEforce gt 720 runs with no problems. Swapped it for an AMD ATI Radeon XFX 7770, logged into my eng, no problems to start, but used flame turret and static shot and boom.
Definitely a compatibility problem with the game and video card. Its not just the flame thrower, other fire particle effects (Norn starting quest causes something similar) can also cause problems.
I too have an i7 4770k, but doesn’t look like that was the problem.