I just started playing DS vanilla and I am becoming very, very frustrated with it.

Given the permadeath, I try to make game saves before I try something new/stupid. In game, I'll alt-tab and check my C:\Users\myuser\Documents\Klei\DoNotStarve\save\ folder. I see files with current date/time stamps and then do a save and quit.

Yet when I restart the game and try to load that save game, the game crashes completely. After a couple of retries/restarts, the game will start but all my save game slots are empty.

Additionally, at the beginning of every new day, the "Saving..." notification drops from the top right, but I have no means to access those saves. No autosaves are being saved (or at least are not available as a save game slot.)

I've checked that my save game folder has all the proper security settings and is readable/writable by the game. The folder is NOT being accessed by any other programs such as Google Drive. Is there something else I should be checking?

Having to re-start gameplay every time from Day 1 is incredibly boring.