I had the exact same problem with my first game. (I have since restarted it with no problems) I think my problems happened because of time traveling too much. I get impatient waiting for things to happen so I skipped a bit. I had just started my 3rd generation family and had gotten and rejected probably two proposals when I suddenly stopped getting emails and noticed the store didn't refresh when it should have. I don't know if anyone else who has had this problem time traveled at all or not but I thought it might shed some light for some people.