Before anything else, you might wanna take a look at the whole saving and loading code again.
The regular save seems to have a small chance to get wiped between restarts.
That means that exporting is the only proper way to save, but not everything seems to get loaded correctly back in, which, depending on what it is, can completely lock up the game. For example, either the equipped clothing or the coverage state does not seem to be handled properly, leaving you unable to do anything (can't even unequip and reequip clothing that is technically considered worn, but not properly recognized).