I have been having a similar issue and with any of the shards. I did a bunch of tests to rule out what I could then opened a ticket. However, any tips are welcome -- I've tried a great number of things (graphics reset, making sure game is allowed in FW / AV settings, network traversal tests, debug info). So far the issue appears to happen in the hand-off between DBServer and Mapserver. However, even after successfully connecting Mapserver will kill the connection. Once it happens I either can no longer connect to a shard (kicks on the character screen) or it happens within 30s of connecting to Mapserver.
I'm patient, I just love the game and can't believe how awesome it is to have a community that has brought it back to me.