python3 segmentation faults with spacy

After
# pip3 install spacy
executing
# python3 -m spacy download de
results in a segmentation fault, as shown by the following output woith strace information added

[...]

Running setup.py install for de-core-news-sm ... done
Successfully installed blis-0.4.1 catalogue-0.2.0 certifi-2019.11.28 chardet-3.0.4 cymem-2.0.3 de-core-news-sm-2.2.5 idna-2.8 importlib-metadata-1.3.0 more-itertools-8.0.2 murmurhash-1.0.2 numpy-1.18.0 plac-1.1.3 preshed-3.0.2 requests-2.22.0 setuptools-43.0.0 spacy-2.2.3 srsly-0.2.0 thinc-7.3.1 tqdm-4.41.1 urllib3-1.25.7 wasabi-0.5.0 zipp-0.6.0
[{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 26073
--- SIGCHLD {si_signo=SIGCHLD, si_code=CLD_EXITED, si_pid=26073, si_uid=1000, si_status=0, si_utime=742, si_stime=113} ---
write(1, "\33[38;5;2m\342\234\224 Download and instal"..., 114✔ Download and installation successful
You can now load the model via spacy.load('de_core_news_sm')) = 114
write(1, "\n", 1
) = 1
getcwd("/home/mkg/nlp", 1024) = 14
stat("/home/mkg/nlp", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0775, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat("/usr/lib/python3.6", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=20480, ...}) = 0
stat("/usr/lib/python3.6/lib-dynload", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=12288, ...}) = 0
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0700, st_size=12288, ...}) = 0
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_CLOEXEC|O_DIRECTORY) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0700, st_size=12288, ...}) = 0
getdents(3, /* 245 entries /, 32768) = 10048
getdents(3, / 0 entries */, 32768) = 0
close(3) = 0
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/init.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so", 0x7fffc1f91fc0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/init.abi3.so", 0x7fffc1f91fc0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/init.so", 0x7fffc1f91fc0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/init.py", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=291, ...}) = 0
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/init.py", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=291, ...}) = 0
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/pycache/init.cpython-36.pyc", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=503, ...}) = 0
lseek(3, 0, SEEK_CUR) = 0
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=503, ...}) = 0
read(3, "3\r\r\n:7\313]#\1\0\0\343\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0\0\0@\0\0"..., 504) = 503
read(3, "", 1) = 0
close(3) = 0
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0775, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/meta.json", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=2909, ...}) = 0
stat("/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/meta.json", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=2909, ...}) = 0
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/home/mkg/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/de_core_news_sm/meta.json", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
ioctl(3, FIOCLEX) = 0
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0664, st_size=2909, ...}) = 0
ioctl(3, TCGETS, 0x7fffc1f91eb0) = -1 ENOTTY (Inappropriate ioctl for device)
lseek(3, 0, SEEK_CUR) = 0
lseek(3, 0, SEEK_CUR) = 0
--- SIGSEGV {si_signo=SIGSEGV, si_code=SEGV_MAPERR, si_addr=NULL} ---
+++ killed by SIGSEGV (core dumped) +++
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

I've also opened this as spacy issue at https://github.com/explosion/spaCy/issues/4838 (which shows some additonal info) -- however, IMHO as an interpreter python3 should neversegfault even if the program supplied has issues?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: python3 3.6.7-1~18.04
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-37.40~18.04.1-generic 5.0.21
Uname: Linux 5.0.0-37-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.9
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Jan 1 15:42:19 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-08-18 (136 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20190210)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: python3-defaults
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)