Alfred support helped me out and this looks resolved.
It seems like this was a temporary issue with likely related to iCloud and needed some time (4-6hr) to reindex or something like that.
So, resolved for me, but if it happens to you, just be more patient than I was.
Running 4.8 [1312]
I updated to Sonoma and now I'm getting freezing / locking.
Reproducible every time.
1. Start Alfred
2. Type something in the bar, like "asdf" It works.
3. Escape out.
4. Type some more: it freezes.
I have zero workflows.