First, thanks for the sympathies.
issues: Yes and no, the issue with hitting a lump has been reported before. But else ... I tried a lot today, including setting my system time to 1998 (year).
I once actually had a software with year-2000-bug ...
Most annoyingly earlier today I got it to run properly ONCE, and then never again, would no longer run at all under those settings.
Wow!
Thank you, and thanks those modders/ coders - they never cease to amaze me. I just tried, and hui, what responsiveness - first have to slow things down.

This is so nice, I had already started to like the game, and now I can hopefully be busy for days or weeks with it.
If you still want to play this, see Jugurthine's message above this one for the solution.