Tried a few more combinations:
1. Freeze at Ridley Cutscene
2. WBFS (not FAT/NTFS)
3. freezes: waninkoko cIOSX rev19 (249), hermes v4 based on 38 merged with 37 (222) and hermes v5 based on 57 (223).
4. USB Loader GX and Configurable, latest
5. "Metroid_ Other M.rar", not sure which one is that...