There's no about:blank in the address bar in the video-- the tab title says "New Tab - Toby," which appears to be an NTP replacement extension:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/toby-for-chrome/hddnkoipeenegfoeaoibdmnaalmgkpip

Maybe the link opened from the external application is somehow racing with the NTP extension's page and they're canceling each other?

This error is caused by an update waiting in the background. If a new chrome version is downloaded and is waiting for a browser restart all external links stop working. This bug seems to be present in Chrome for a while, with first reports ranging back 3 months.

I had the same problem as well on a Mac. A workaround is to completely close and relaunch the browser(for example over Help -> About Google Chrome -> Relaunch). External links should work again after that.