Just started the second playthrough, game UI breaks very early (after building the forger and hiring the first additional agent who is needed for the story). Buttons do not work, map is empty. Game has to be force-quit.

I am having a very simlar issue. I can go to the map, but it's empty, I can go to the board with the clues, but it just zooms to a room, and the other buttons don't work. Not even the main menu.

I have successfully finished the game in an earlier version months ago.

I just dealt with this myself. I got around it by changing the conditions that hit when hiring that agent. I'm not sure what was the specific fix but I got around it by hiring a different agent first and running a mission that opened up the analytics board. Then I only got hit with 1 tutorial message when hiring the required agent (who for me anyway was also a mole).

I also got around it by loading an earlier savegame. Have been playing pretty far now, so I think I should be fine.