i'm realizing what i encountered wasn't a bug but totally on purpose LOL. **spoiler below**
the game kind of locks you on the map once it starts to distort from working and making eli unhappy, which i think is mostly intentional since it's the game telling you that you effed up and eli doesn't want to go outside anymore? the issue however is that it completely locks you on the map screen and you're even unable to go back to the home so it calls for closing and reopening the game, which is really inconvenient if you haven't saved LOL. i've had no issues otherwise!