I just started getting this after updating to 9.5.30 as well. I think there is some kind of bug with the version of elicenser bundled with 9.5.30. So even a full uninstall and revert all the way back to Cubase 9.5 does not fix it-- because you are still using latest elicenser software and it is broken.
You can confirm this yourself by launching the elicenser control center: does it work to run the maintenance task? For me, it hangs, just like Cubase hangs on vstconnect.dll. So I assume it is the interaction between Cubase and elicenser driver that is broken.
I was able to resolve this by uninstalling Cubase and elicenser both, and then reinstalling cubase and upgrading to 9.5.21 (I was lucky enough to have kept the 9.5.21 updater on my local hard disk because I cannot find anywhere either in the steinberg downloader or on the steinberg website where you can download previous versions-- perhaps if you contact support they can provide the download).
Version of elicenser was 6.11.3.1230 (not sure if that is the version bundled with 9.5.30 or not because I did also try updating it directly from Steinberg as well). After uninstall / reinstall of 9.5.21, the version is 6.10.7.6224 and Cubase launches with no issue.