The VS project has include directories to boost headers and a "version" header set up. The server/libs/boost directory contains some Boost 1.62 header files.
The version/version.h file is an emptye Unicode encoded file (it only contains a little-endian BOM (FF FE)).
Before opening the server/main/main.sln solution, ensure that the .vs directory does not exist in the same directory. When the solution is opened, the include files are parsed and Visual Studio 2017 crashes.
Removing the BOM from the version.h file or adding some content (e.g. a newline) to it prevents the crash. However, there is some strange interplay with the Boost config headers and the version.h file with just the BOM. Renaming the server/libs/boost directory (to prevent the contained include files from being parsed) also allows the project to load successfully.