I've posted this to the tech forum, reposting here:
Here's a simple setup using the standard pyro bonfire configure. On my system Karma XPU crashes on the 3rd frame, regardless of where I'm starting the sequence. Karma CPU renders it fine. Houdini 20.0.547 GTX 1080

Yes, this popped up a few times in the last ~2 months, basically a CPU crash with the 545 line of drivers on Windows. Our system requirements page, and XPU documentation always report latest driver version recommendations
https://www.sidefx.com/Support/system-requirements/ [www.sidefx.com]
https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/solaris/karma_xpu.html#supported-hardware [www.sidefx.com]
"546.33+ strongly recommend for Windows"