Thank you, Barbara!

I think you've hit on exactly what is going on with my version of Plant Tycoon. I've noticed before that the little people freeze if I pull up another window while in the Nursery screen. I've usually just managed this by calling it time to make another cuppa and leave the Nursery up and running while I do that. (Each set of plants takes about an hour from seed to pollination completion which makes it a good time to take a short break.)

The Nursery screen is the only part of the game that doesn't continue to play in the background. My plants will age, grow, get infested, become sick, and populate seeds while I'm focused on other windows but I have to focus on the game to see any changes that have occurred while I've been in other windows.

What you've described is probably what has happened in this case. I have often clicked to open the game then jumped off to another window before giving it a chance to load. I've noticed the game actually doesn't continue loading but it kicks back in when I focus on that window so I didn't think there might be corruption happening to the saved games. I'll be sure to allow the game to finish loading each time I open it now before focusing on other windows.

Thanks also for the link about backing up saved games. I followed the steps and have found where they are stored. Now I can make sure I back up the saved games regularly.

Thanks you so much for your help.

Sincerely,
Rebecca