17th October 2016, 17:02
I had this same problem (I updated my VMWare machine to see 
- but only after I shut VMWare Fusion down entirely. Up to that point, just shutting the vm down and restarting it, caused no problems. But now, I see the login screen and can type in my password. I hear the login sound also, but then just blackness.
I can open krunner and type 'plasmashell' into a konsole window as suggested in another thread, which makes everything return ... but interestingly, the missing-letters-in-menus problem also returned.
(VirtualBox (still on 5.7.3) is running great so far, all letters intact and everything working. I think I won't update it quite yet!)
- but only after I shut VMWare Fusion down entirely. Up to that point, just shutting the vm down and restarting it, caused no problems. But now, I see the login screen and can type in my password. I hear the login sound also, but then just blackness. I can open krunner and type 'plasmashell' into a konsole window as suggested in another thread, which makes everything return ... but interestingly, the missing-letters-in-menus problem also returned.
(VirtualBox (still on 5.7.3) is running great so far, all letters intact and everything working. I think I won't update it quite yet!)