Microsoft Surface Tablet Mode - Keyboard does not display, crashes search field

No, this issue of the on-screen keyboard opening and closing when in tablet mode has been reported, and a Ticket opened:

It happens on my Windows tablets as well (a ThinkPad 10 and a Surface 3) and it’s an annoyance. The workaround is to go into Keyboard mode, and manually open the on-screen keyboard using the keyboard icon in the Taskbar.