Infinite save wheel

Hey! So I just redownloaded the Sims 4 from Steam. I am on Zorin OS and have to use Proton to run the game, but I've played it twice for a few months at a time on this same setup and it worked perfectly fine. Most notably, the last time I played (on this exact setup) was in about May, and everything worked fine then. I removed all of the existing Sims files off my computer before downloading it again from Steam. Now all of a sudden, whenever I open up a household, I can't save the game. It will start saving, and the wheel will make about one rotation and then stop completely, and remain that way for at least an hour (I haven't had the patience to leave it for longer than that but it's frankly unacceptable either way). I have also tried downloading the game from the EA app using a guide I have used in the past, and that no longer works either. How do I fix this? Any help would be much appreciated.