I always used "pause" but my game kept on running. I would minimize it and, when I wanted to play it, I would set it to "full screen."

I was almost finished and the game froze. I can find it with the isola1.ldw but I don't know what to do with that kind of file. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What happens why you load the game? Do you get sent right to the start, where you are asked to name a tribe?

If so, your savegame file is probably corrupt. Close the game down and look in the folder where the isola1.ldw file is found. There should also be a file named isola21.ldw. Rename isola1.ldw to something else (such as isola1.ldw.bak) and then rename isola21.ldw to isola1.ldw. Start the game and you should have your village back. Since it is an earlier backup you may have lost some things that happened a short while before the game crashed.

Just before doing what Arnie says, don’t forget to put all your tribes in Pause!

Since the game won't load, there is no way to put it in pause. This is an emergency measure to try to recover the game.

I tried renaming the files but the game starts at the beginning each time. I have now lost 2 almost complete games. I can't seem to keep this one working so I may as well quit playing it. It is no longer fun.

Just out of curiosity, when you paused your game, did you leave it on the Menu or Options screen and minimize it? If so, your games weren't really paused, due to the way that the game handles game speed changes. The safest thing to do when you're not going to be actively playing the game and want it to be paused for some period of time is to pause it and then quit. Your game will be saved in a paused state and will be preserved, ready for you to resume at a later time.

If the game is running and minimized, it is susceptible to problems resulting from computer crashes, etc.

I paused the game and minimized the VV screen. I think that the game got lost because I played another game while VV was minimized.

Do you know how I could get the saved game back?

I have written a procedure that will restore your game(s) if the file(s) have not been corrupted by a crash or other similar bad event. You can see the procedure in this answer in our Support FAQ. I hope it helps you.