Comment # 22 on bug 1079416 from Ben Steel

For me, this bug (as originally described by Mr. Nunya) was resolved by the
Tumbleweed update that I applied (zypper dup) on 30 July 2018 at 16:32 UTC.
This update happened to include the kernel 4.17.9-1-default #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun
Jul 22 19:18:23 UTC 2018 (059e5b8) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux.

It had not been resolved by "my" previous update on 24 July 2018 at 20:55 UTC,
which included kernel 4.17.7-1-default. There likely were updates offered in
between that I didn't see or install.

For future reference, the workaround of logging out of the KDE workspace before
hitting the shutdown button in the graphical login screen also required waiting
a second or two, during which the hard drive LED would briefly light. If you
hit shutdown too soon, the system would freeze, just like before.

I hope this helps.