The world freezes if the gamerule randomTickSpeed is set to a very high value. Like 1000000000.
How to reproduce:
Type the following:
/gamerule randomTickSpeed 1000000000
in a world with cheats on. You'll see you aren't able to do anything other than move and place and destroy blocks. For instance, the "place block" sound will not play, but the "break block" sound will play. Music is unaffected. You can't send chat messages, and chunks stop loading. You cannot set the randomTickSpeed gamerule back to 3. Reloading the save fixes it.
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You're setting a value that's higher than your computer can handle.
Someone claimed mine being a copy of this, I disagree...
Can confirm in 1.17.1.
@Mustek No. I say that all computers can handle this because the framerate does not drop, therefore meaning it is most likely an issue in integrated server.

Can confirm in 21w37a.

Can confirm in 21w42a.

The server-side Minecraft crashes (yes Minecraft single-player worlds have a server-side), and the client still runs, resulting in a half crash, thats what I see here

Tested in 24w13a, confirmed with value 2147483647.
happens in 1.21.1, set it to 1000000000 or something and then water would not flow, and when i leavethe world, the game freezes and the only way to exit the game is to go into task manager and end task.
I've done the same. I think it's just a strange lag. The game lags but the graphics are unaffected.