Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland [BLES01593]

You seems to have some DLC that isn't working. I would just delete the file pack00.EDAT or maybe even the entire DLC folder and see what happens.

Yup, exactly that, thank you very much.

Since you have a much faster computer than me try starting a new game a few times and see if you get anything. I suspect that Ayesha just has the exact same black screen of death bug as the other Ateliers and Ar Tonelico 3, and it seems random when they hang. If it's a thread synchronization issue it might work better (or worse) for you.