Seems an old problem I've seen back in 2015 and 2017 returned for a revisit.
So there was maintenance done on the Xbox One NA server today (1 July 2018). Ever since the maintenance, I couldn't log into any of my characters. I'd pick a character, then I'd be stuck waiting for the character load request either until I lose connectivity due to inactivity, or endlessly if I intervene enough to delay the inactivity kick.
None of my characters get a pass on the load. None of them have anything in common except that they are all in Auridon, and that they are all Khajiit. I'm a creature of habit.
I've tried thus far:
1. Quitting and restarting game.
2. Deleting saved data and restarting game.
3. Power cycling console and restarting game.
4. Being patient and waiting it out while knocking a stick to stop the inactivity kick.
5. Cursing at my game.
6. Playing a different game.
None have fixed the problem thus far. Can't follow the solutions from older posts about the issue; all of them are PC solutions which are not possible to do on Xbox One.
Will appreciate any suggestions or solutions as long as they are possible on console. Until then, I'll continue with option 5 above.