Excessive loading times post 4.0

I have posted about this issue in other threads but since I've made some progress on the issue I decided to make a thread for it.
Recap:
After downloading update 4.0 I experienced 4-5 minute load times when opening the game, pre battle, and post battle. The extra time stuck on the prebattle screen was causing me to float for the first 60-90 seconds of the match which would usually end in a loss resulting in very few coins.

Attempted solutions:
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game, factory resetting my device, playing on WiFi and mobile data, I turned off all background data usage from other apps, and freed up system memory. None of these things effected the issue.
Then I decided to update the game on an old device to see if I still experienced these load times. The old device gave me the normal load times back but also caused lag during the game that I wasn't experiencing on my new device.
Old device: Android 6.0.1
New device: Android 7.0
I used the same Wi-Fi connection on both devices which leads me to believe the issue was caused by an operating system bug/conflict.
I will try to downgrade my new device to Android 6.0 (if it's even possible) and see if I can get the best of both (no lag and normal load times).

I would prefer to keep 7.0 on my new device so I hope this bug is resolved in the near future.
Is anyone else running Android 7.0 with no issues? Maybe I have a setting somewhere that I don't know about and it is causing my issue? Any help is appreciated!!!

P.S. From what little I have been able to play I am enjoying the new update and can't wait to see what else the developers have in store for us down the line.
Off topic but now the uniform agility among ship mks makes sense so for future reference just know that anything the developers do is for a reason and you might be pleasantly surprised.