My research has shown that the problem only occurs when using the OS/4 kernel. This kernel, unlike the ArcaOS kernel, has support for AVX - NPX thread context switching, etc. Most likely, OpenSSL checks for AVX support (via xgetbv?), and the problematic section of code with the ArcaOS kernel simply does not execute.
It would be great if the alignment issue (?) were resolved. Or, if it were easier, AVX support could be removed from OpenSSL. Although that's certainly not the best solution.
Unfortunately, the ArcaOS kernel here does not work well in VMWare