Problem loading GBA game save file (Harvest Moon Friends Of Mineral Town)

[Truro]

Hello.
Last week I got a copy of Harvest Moon:Friends Of Mineral Town, second hand on ebay. I've been hooked on it ever since (It's my 3rd in game year, I'm married to Elli and our baby's on the way), but I've run into a small problem:

Sometimes, when I select the "Continue" option from the start up screen, it'll take me to the "Select save file" screen and both save slots are empty, even though I have saved the game.

The first time this happened, I pressed B to go back to the title screen, selected "Continue" again, and there was my save file and I could load it.

I didn't give it much thought until a few days later, when this started happening every time I switch the game on. I have to keep exiting and entering the continue screen (as much as 10-20 times) to get my save file to eventually reappear.

Both save slots will say "There is no save game data". However, if there wasn't any save data, the game would automatically start a new game and take me straight to the character set-up and not allow me to go to the "Contine" menu at all.. It's as if the game knows that there is a save file, but just has trouble recovering it.

Sometimes, when the save file finally does show up, it will sometime claim that it is corrupt and can't load. But if I keep pressing the A button to select the file a couple of times, it will load the file and the file is perfectly fine.

Has anyone else ever had this happen to them?
Do you know why it happens?
Is there anything I can do about it?

Additional: The cartridge has the official Nintendo Seal of Quality and is a genuine article and not a bootleg.

[Booldawg]

Not quite sure how the GBA handles save game data but I imagine in writes it to the game card (which is an SD card I think?) Sounds like the card is a bit iffy and the GBA is having trouble reading it.

I had something similar whereby I had one of those 50 games on an SD card. That went u/s and wouldnt read data.