Creating a new thread as you've asked.
I did a restore in my local git repo and everything was back in order. This time I positioned myself on the topic where I wanted to create my new topic. I updated the title in the new topic dialog and clicked the Create Topic button. See the screenshot for the result.

It might be better for me to demo what I'm seeing. Let me know your preference.
Update your templates from the Build menu.
I can't see what type of topic that is... if it still breaks or you already updated your templates, check that topic template and compare to what it says for Topic.html (ie. the topic template)
For that script it should look like this:
h2 class="content-title">
<img src="~/_docmonster/icons/{{ Model.Topic.DisplayType }}.png">
{{ Model.Topic.Title }}
</h2>
<!-- THIS -->
{{! Script.RenderPartial($"Under-Construction-Partial.html", Model) }}
<div class="content-body" id="body">
There was a change in the default templates a while back that moved that file around. The new templates should fix that and have the right files.
Note: Templates in your project don't update automatically since you can tweak them, so that's always a manual step if you choose to update.
+++ Rick ---
Thanks. I am peripherally aware of the manual template updates and it's entirely possible something has changed since my last official push of this project.
I am seeing data loss after certain workflows and can duplicate. It's probably best for me to demonstrate instead of first writing up a lengthy post or opening a gh bug, but at your convenience, of course.