In-game saves not working after loading from savestate?

[dingdongyo]

OS: Windows 10
Snes9x version: 1.55
ROM: 7th Saga

not the end of the world because the savestates work fine, but i want to be able to pick up where i left off on a different machine. i can load the savestate fine, and the savestate loads to a place where i can easily access an in-game save point, which i do. but nothing saves to the SRAM. i'll even use the snes9x menu to force the SRAM to save (which creates/changes the .srm with the correct last modified date), then reset game, then nothing shows in the in-game saved games. it's weird because the in-game saves seem to be working with other games, and i have an old SRAM for this same game that has a save.

any ideas for what caused this and/or how to fix? def open to suggestions, i've already tried a bunch of subtle changes (like different windows folders) that isn't working. thanks!