Getting some cycles to look at this, seems like an init timing issue, which requires a Draw() call, tracking it down.
Nice. I noticed this problem too, when worker object is not on screen, every objects animations just stops. New stuff I spawn after that does not render. If I do the same thing in Debug, the whole game just stops/freezes.
Posted a fix, let me know if this corrects all the issues (it fixes the demo error project).
Just tested. Everything works perfect again. Nice!