So, unfortunately, the only thing that works is running a clean folder. I can't play any of my saved games for some reason because when I tried to manually add just the most recent save file to the clean folders saves, it wouldn't let me play. But when I didn't load in any of my saves, I was able to play with the fresh new folder and the random sim I got off of the gallery just fine. Must be something in my saves? I feel like once I loaded this one house into my game, it caused issues but I'm not sure if that's a thing. Other households seem to work but not the one that lives in that house. I might go delete it and see if that helps - idk, I'm just desperate at this point. It's been almost 2 months since my game has been like this... I don't feel safe entering or leaving CAS or a household in case it just keeps loading and I have to end task.
I'm confused and this is depressing.
Update: So, I have no idea how or why this happened but I was able to get in and play my game. It's the saves I added to the clean folder. I started off trying a different household from the one I've been trying to play this whole time, and the household loaded. I played that for about 2mins and then tried a different one - that one worked too! So then, I went to the household I really wanted to play and it loaded in! I didn't do anything different besides loading a different household other than the one I've been trying to resume from this whole time. I was wondering if it was the household or the house maybe but I don't know. I quit the game to add my mods back and am going to try and see if it works still but I won't load into the household I want first, just in case that was the issue. Once I feel comfortable enough to try to load in with the one I've been trying to this whole time, I'll see if I run into the continuous loading again (if any of this makes sense lol).