Similar results on Macmini M1 - I’m not sweating it because its so early AND honestly especially when it comes to rendering itself I have never found any flavor of Blender to be “useable” for animation renders out of the box on Windows. The only way I’ve gotten anything substantive rendered is through B-Renderon.
EDIT - I just noted the “system wide freezing”. I haven’t seen that here but honestly havent pushed incredibly hard. Just occasionally have a beach ball to force quit type of scenario.