Very recently my save files are seemingly corrupting in a weird way. Loading old saves takes only a few seconds, but loading new saves can take minutes. The weird thing is that I can't tell what is causing it, every other loading screen works fine, performance is perfect, and scripting is working correctly as far as I can tell. The problem only happens when loading a recent save file.

My mod list and environment has not changed dramatically recently, so it really surprised me. I've tried all the regular fixes like waiting 30 days and starting over from older saves, but it doesn't help. I even used a utility to nuke the scripts from my save file just to see if it would go faster, and it doesn't. I have no orphaned/unattached scripts. I'm using Mod Organizer, so everything in my Steam install directory is pristine, validating files only altered one Steam installer script and moved the logo video back out from where I hid it. I reinstalled SKSE and set up the INI file, but no change. I also ran LOOT again to make sure something wasn't out of order, like updating a mod maybe changed a conflict status, but still no improvement.

So I'm hoping someone knows what's going on or can point me in the right direction. It's like reverse save bloat, the bad save is slightly smaller than the good one (although I can't remember if I saved these from the same "timeline"). I ran my saves through an MO profile without any mods or modified INI files and got the same behavior. In any case, I've attached all that info below if you want to take a look and see if I've missed something: