Originally Posted by
tonberrian
Dunno how to help with that, specifically (it seems like an issue with the emulator to me), but what you might do is take a save state right after your save (as a backup), and then soft reset the game with A + B + Start + Select, then take another save state at the load screen, then load the save state then load the game. Should be able to get to do the quest mode stuff.
If this was a hardcopy of the game I'd suggest that the internal battery was dying on you.
Edit: Alternatively, are you sure you're not turning off the emulator in the middle of the save process? Make sure you back out of everything after saving, see if that helps.