+1 on this, my CEM-25P acts even weirder. Whenever Ekos tells it to park, it cranks way past horizontal, in fact. I've had it crunch into itself -- maybe it's trying to go inverted? At any rate, I just don't use parking from Ekos.
Except that means that I always have to have the controller in my paw when I finish up with the Polar Alignment Assistant, because otherwise Ekos sends it haring off to Bog knows where. In fact since I moved to SM 1.5.2 on a Pi4 I have to slew the mount manually in the PAA, though otherwise GOTO seems just fine.
Check the polar alignment config by clicking the Options button to the lower right of the polar alignment tab. The first tab called Astrometry.net has an Auto Park option that you can disable.