I've had my copy (physical cartridge) of Animal Crossing: New Leaf since it came out in the U.S., and I've been playing it literally every day since. But for the last week, when I try to launch it (On my Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds 3DS XL) from the menu (as you would any game), it gets to the black loading screen, the train loading icon freezes, and it crashes to the 3DS menu with the text box that says:
"An error has occurred, forcing the software to close. The system will now restart. (Unsaved data may be lost.)"
I've found a way to regain access to the game temporarily by going in to the 3DS system settings and setting the time and date to a time before your last save. But this is only temporary. It will go back to crashing when you save and quit, and the 3DS time changes after you close the game. While it's fine and all that I can at least play that way, doing that my town can never see a new day. Trees won't grow, PWPs won't be finished over night, days won't change. I've put too many hours in to this game to just buy another copy (and honestly, I don't have the money for a new copy at this time.), nor do I want to lose my town.
Does anyone have any ideas as to how to fix this?