This issue just happened to me after 100+ hours gameplay. Didn't realise I already looted the brooch while exploring. Hope it will be fixed soon so I can finish the game.

After finishing the main story line, I got the "Victory" quest to travel back to Ravensthrope and report back to Ranvi.
In Francia, I talk to Pierre and choose the option to travel back to England.
Since then, whenever I try to travel back to Francia I got stuck on the loading screen.
I've tried to travel back by talking to Pierre again and by using Atlas, but both of them gave the same result.

Finally can continue the story after updating to TU 1.2.0.
The fix didn't immediately fix the problem though.
What I did to fix is:

1. Create a new Manual Save
2. Load the newly saved game
3. The objective for In the Absence of an Ealdorman finally appear!

Hope this help!

This issue just happened to me after 100+ hours gameplay. Didn't realise I already looted the brooch while exploring. Hope it will be fixed soon so I can finish the game.