If the server crashed and no dev is on to put it back on, you will be stuck in infinite loading screen due to the nature of the crash. The reason for the crash has finally been identified and will be fixed within the next days but until then, the server might still be offline sometimes, like it was today between 3am and noon because devs sleep sometimes, too.
Also, after each patchtime, the first log in will take a longer time (though not quite 5 minutes) and it might crash once on login due to the sound engine, but every log in after that will go fine.