The cooling dynamics of hot charge carriers in colloidal lead chalcogenide nanocrystals is studied by white light transient absorption spectroscopy. We demonstrate a transient accumulation of charge carriers at a high-energy critical point in the Brillouin zone. Using a theoretical study of the cooling rate in lead chalcogenides, we attribute this slowing down of charge carrier cooling to a phonon scattering bottleneck around this critical point. Our approach allows for the first ever determination of hot carrier cooling rates, relevant in e.g. modeling of multiple exciton generation.