It's taking several minutes (I didn't time it but at least 3) to load games for me. I just came back to the game and I don't remember it being that bad before. I *am* running it off a regular HDD (dedicated to game installs) but this is crazy even for that.

Anyone else having these issues with recent patches? Or have an ideas for how to improve them?

Have you tested your hdd? Maybe it starting to fail.