Either (core dumped) or Cannot create OpenGL context, etc. Not very helpful, and nothing of this mentioned on the purchase page.

Have you tried to install Everspace using ./play.it? If so, do you still get a crash on launch, or do you get it only when going through the standard GOG installer?

I was getting the "illegal instruction (core dumped)" error on Pop_OS! 20.04.

The solution for me was to run the game using "./start.sh --syslibs". I was also able to change the default option within start.sh to make it not require the --syslibs option.

It turns out, my video card was too old for Everspace. On a newer computer, it's now working. I wish the error message was more descriptive.