I found that the game crashes the moment Alyx is stabbed by the Hunter and it smashes the structure you're hiding under. It did it under several conditions until I re-verified the game files and then tried it with the vanilla VR mod and it worked just fine.
I also noticed that when you run it under -vrdev that the give items and cheat codes do not show the visual depression of the button, but they still work.
This is a bug I unfortunately never managed to fully fix. It's inconvenient, but you can play EP2 if you skip that part of the game via console or by loading the subsequent map.
I found that the game crashes the moment Alyx is stabbed by the Hunter and it smashes the structure you're hiding under. It did it under several conditions until I re-verified the game files and then tried it with the vanilla VR mod and it worked just fine. I also noticed that when you run it under -vrdev that the give items and cheat codes do not show the visual depression of the button, but they still work.