We've now released Pre-release 4, which fixes a few crashes.
Bugs fixed in 1.18 Pre-release 4
MC-241774 Crash when going nether portals or creating a single biome world with nether biomes // java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index 0 out of bounds for length 0
MC-241775 Crash when going through end portals or creating a single biome world with end biomes // java.lang.NegativeArraySizeException: -5
MC-241778 Game crashes or freeze when loading and upgrading the 1.17.1 version of the Superflat world // java.util.concurrent.CompletionException: z: Biome decoration