Late game freeezes

[alexo22]

In my first campaign I played as Brandenburg/Prussia and since about 1700 periodically I would have stutters that would freeze my game for up to 8 seconds.
In my second campaign as Russia it was okay even in ~1710s.
But now in my third run again as Russia I started having these freezes already in 1590s.
Does anyone else have these freezes (not just game slowing down but literally freezing for seconds) in the late game?
For me it seems like these freezes always start after the religious war and may be somehow related to that.

 

[alexo22]

UPD: I've run an earlier save of the latter campaign from 1567 and there are no freezes at all. Understandably the game runs slower, but seconds-long freezes are non-existent.
btw religious war hasn't happened in that save yet.