What's the problem with this state province crash?
This sounds consistent with hitting a rate limit in Google Maps API.

If so, the fix would be to disable geocoding (as you've done) or to configure a valid API key associated with payment details so Google can bill you for geocoding.

I recently observed similar behaviour when a client was viewing large numbers of contacts in a proximity smart group - possibly this triggered a mass lookup of contacts who lacked geographic co-ordinates.

Your CiviCRM debug log may have more information.