I have noticed this too, but only since I installed easy mode. Have you done that too? Been playing for a couple years without trouble in factory default mode, but have never been good enough to make it through all the modes and through all of Sea of Simulation, so I finally caved and tweaked the difficulty level down. And that's when I experienced the weird flipper dying phenomenon. Just like you describe, as if a tilt occurred but without reason to. Game resumes fine after losing the ball.
I might have to sell the game soon and so I have less than my lifetime to try and beat it, was hoping to achieve that through easy mode. I will eventually restore factory defaults if this bug persists (and stymies my efforts to make it through to the end of the game -- almost like the coders are laughing at us!).