@mitu [UPDATE]
I ended up purchasing another class 10 sandisk 64 gb micro sd card and flashed the stock retropie Zero w image from the website. On boot - got the same result. I began to wonder if it was perhaps just the fact I was using a 64 gb card. So, I purchased yet another micro sd card, this time 32 gb. I’ve had no problems with it whatsoever. It’s been running like a charm!