I had the same problem, but the Player did talk to me, before my game crashed, he said, that he will kill me with his fists (i had a sks equipped)...

When i restatred the game, i spawned as a fresh spawn

Maybe its related to another bug:
Yesterday, i logged in and got the message, that a Player is loosing connection.

When my login process was finished, i stand right next to a player. When i killed him and checked pulse, it says the "unknown entity..." message.

So maybe your connection drops when someone loggs in, right on you.

Can someone grab a friend and just check this?

I'm pretty sure the player, was around for at least 3 mins before I saw him and my game crashed. Zombies and footsteps gave his position away.

Like i wrote on my first post, there was some guy, too. But this doesn´t mean, that someone 3rd looged in on this position, too, causing my game to crash.