Version 2.3.0 incompatible with SpringBoot - KmsMasterKey class does not load

Problem:

VersionInfo#loadUserAgent tries to load a version from a file, this fails catastrophically when this library is packed with the spring-boot-maven-plugin: the result of ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream("project.properties") is null, triggering a NullPointerException which is not handled, which results in the following error for me.

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class com.amazonaws.encryptionsdk.kms.KmsMasterKey

	public final class KmsMasterKey extends MasterKey<KmsMasterKey> implements KmsMethods {
	private static final String USER_AGENT = VersionInfo.loadUserAgent();

	public static String loadUserAgent() {
	try {
	final Properties properties = new Properties();
	properties.load(ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream("project.properties"));
	return USER_AGENT_PREFIX + properties.getProperty("version");
	} catch (final IOException ex) {
	return USER_AGENT_PREFIX + UNKNOWN_VERSION;
	}
	}

Works fine directly (IntelliJ run), but debugging the app within my docker-build clearly shows the issue:

application.jar packed with

      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.4.2</version> <!-- EDIT: also tested latest = 2.5.1 -->
      </plugin>

Solution(s):

Handle a null resource stream, and/or catch NullPointerExceptions here as well as IOExceptions.
Or simply hard-code the version directly in this file rather than delegating to a properties resource?
Use a classLoader from the same jar, e.g., the following works in my debugger:

properties.load(VersionInfo.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("project.properties"));