I did a search on this and found no matches, so I'm going to begin one now.
I have had this error message so many times and had to begin my game again and again because of it. I'm just hoping someone else can identify and relate and hopefully have some answers, because EA Customer Support don't seem to have them.
My issue began when I first started playing this game as apposed to The Sims 2. It hasn't been that long, only about since June. I initially played it for World Adventures, the idea of traps and treasure, gems and metals and bugs was exciting to me (I'm a big Tomb Raider fan) so naturally, my first Sim was leaning towards adventuring. Having done all my adventures, I couldn't wait to get them into a personal museum underground. So I built this elaborate subterranean display, each area decorated to each location and clicked Save. Then what shows up, Save Error 12! After communicating back and fourth with EA, I was no closer to finding a solution, without having to start again. So that's what I did. After a further two attempts using the Same Sim as my first I decided to start again completely. Bearing in mind had done many, uninstalls, reinstalls and manual installs. Defrag, updated drivers and all the other rubbish EA made me do I figured starting completely again might do the trick.
And so far it had. I have worked through Six Generations, my 6th being the first adventurer. I come back, make a smaller, yet still elaborate subterranean museum and wack, its back! Error Save 12! Maybe I'm pushing boundaries by saying this issue is correlated to me creating a museum, but what else am I left with when it seems this issue only occurs at this point in my gameplay?
Anyone have any ideas of how I can alleviate this issue? If I cant make my own personal museum, what's the point in me playing with World Adventures? Its just a waste both sides of how you look at it. I apologise for this being so long, but I'm running out of patience and ideas.