It is still playable... I'd imagine the pathfinding is killing it, in part I'd say due to a large galaxy with an incredible number of starships and the AI is trying to move them all, or it is getting lost moving yours.
What worked for me was to disable "Force AI to use Max CPU" and enable "Skip Moves Left Over From Autopilot."
From there, hit the find button, it is possible there could be a few craft with outstanding turns then need to either be skipped, or moved. It was just a temporary measure for me until I could whittle down the enemy starfleet and giving the pathfinding a bit of a break.