It's what my Crashlands games always start out with. Game starts, I can see the protagonists, start to move and WAM, I'm back on my desktop being asked to establish an internet connection. No crash or anything, mind you, it's just that the game asks for a connection, I'm playing 'offline' as in 'offline', and I have to say "no" twice before I can get back in the game.

Any way this ennerving stuff can be deactivated or patched out?

If you start the game, there's a infobox at the upper left corner.

It ask's you to register&to log into their cloud, this might cause your problems, if you either activated the cloud/registration without being online or ignored it and the game "reminds" you of your duty.