There really needs to be save points in other places of the game. It isn't always practical to go all the way back there.
Edit:
And now I go back to the game after leaving it for an hour or two, and find that it froze while I was away. I guess that I'm going to have to start over :|
There are 3 white stars that you could find in the Castle town entrance, The front of the Village, Yoki's journal in her home, in the forest near the lost traveler, and in the grave yard. Those are areas you can save in.
I saved using Yoki’s diary and the stars multiple times but, after I closed the game, all of my save files disappeared... I couldn’t “continue”, I could only start again. Is anyone experiencing anything similar? Is there a way to get back my save files?
Check if you have the save folder for the game in the www folder, if there isn't one then that might be why you don't have any saves, and i'm pretty sure there's no way to recover them.
yeah... there was nothing there. I had to play it from the beginning. Thankfully I was really close at finishing it the first time so I didn’t spent too much time figuring out where to go ^^