Oh this is an easy fix. I originally thought it was some sort of version mismatch thing or a corrupted download since I could never reproduce it, but apparently I never tried the very obvious likely cause - the complex-joint item only exists if you enable a setting to add more intermediates, and which I apparently entirely forgot to put a check for when modifying K2 utility science specifically.
The simple reason SE fixes this is I don't modify the utility science recipe if SE is installed, because SE changes the context of utility and production science and adding complex joints to the recipe no longer makes as much sense flavorwise.
The update I just pushed should fix the issue, let me know if the error continues.