Occasionally, when villagers use workstations the game will crash and will make some entities (mostly villagers) disappear after reloading back into the world, or crashing again instantly when you load into the world until villager is gone or villager decides to wait before using the station, giving you enough time to break it to save yourself.

Recreate

Have a populated village and occasionally it will crash when someone used a workstation and check if some entities sre missing after rejoining.