I was really excited to play this game, but immediately on startup I get the message:

The game crashed.
The crash report folder named "2022-01-26_221902" next to game executable.
It would be great if you'd send it to the developer of the game!

This only happens if I start the game without internet access. I know that the leaderboards require internet access, but the game crashes completely without it, effectively making the game "online only" for me. I understand that this is probably just a bug and not the intention of the developers, but it's game-breaking for me and potentially for anyone who may be behind a firewall, for example.

I'd really like to play this game. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

Over 2 years later, I repurchased Sheltered Stasis and found a solution on my own.

Either delete or move this file (or just rename the extension):
Sheltered\Sheltered_Data\Managed\GalaxyCSharp.dll

Now it doesn't crash on startup when you block the connection. It probably won't work with Galaxy after doing this, but if you like to lock your system down it's a fair tradeoff. I'm glad I gave it another try as this game looks really cool.