Same thing has happened to me 3 times now. I have lost 3 families I've spend 10+ hours on. This game has NEVER loaded any of my saves, every single time I've returned to this game it has only given me the option to create a new family, no load option.
I am going to follow the guide in this thread and update this post on whether it has permanently fixed my problem. Otherwise I'm going to get my money back.
I created a character and was able to load that character after exiting the game. I'm pretty gutted about losing my last game, but will try once more to play this game.
Will keep updated on progress.