I feel kind of sheepish for not figuring this out sooner. It was all so very basic, elegant and simplistic, really.

I've had the game since it came out, and like most people it seems, I have suffered the occasional CTD or crash during save or bizarre glitch that results in a corrupted save file. A corrupt save, in any game, is a sad, sad thing.

Now, I've been all over the Sims3 files; editing inis, nudging packages into place and such. The Save folder was a trusted, but rarely visited companion. But I knew, yet I did not comprehend, that the save folder contains .backup files. Wait.. a backup means things can be recovered!

So yes, this was basically a long-winded, meandering post to say:

-If your save game is corrupt, go to Documents\Electronic Arts\TS3\Saves, find your save.
-There should be two files, "save.sims3" and "save.sims3.backup"
-Move, rename or delete "save.sims3" I personally rename mine to "saveORIGINAL.sims3" but that's an old habit.
-Rename "save.sims3.backup" to "save.sims3" - ie, just remove the .backup extension.
-Load your game, and try to load the previous save. Crossing your fingers helps.

You will need to have file extensions showing so you can edit them, but I just can't seem to remember how I did it on Vista. Viewing options, somewhere?

Disclaimer: This might, and probably won't, work for everybody, due to the numerous elements that can corrupt a save, and therefore a .backup file; but at least it's an option other than immediately starting from scratch.

So I'm sorry for advance if this is a bad PSA and everyone actually knew this. I was just really excited to get my first sims 3 family back! Hoorah.

the game has been running fine for me havent had any problems then all of a sudden today everytime i play my saved game my computer restarts as soon as the neighborhood loads.. could that mean my save game is corrupt?

I'm not sure. Those aren't any of the symptoms I've experienced personally, but it might be valid.

You can always try the method and make sure to hang on to your original "save.sims3" file just in case. It's a pretty safe procedure to preform on the chance that it works.