Solved by Gribbler! Gribbler, you are a star. Based on your reply, I carefully checked it out :-the spacebar key turns on the PAUSED message while saving the game using a save-name with more than one word e.g. got<spacebar>bucket. I particularly watched the sequence and PAUSED is definitely appearing after pressing spacebar. If the save-name has 3 words (2 spaces), it turns on PAUSED on the first spacebar and turns it off on the 2nd spacebar. So, when the gamescreen comes up after saving, if it has a PAUSED message, pressing spacebar clears it. Don't know why that did not work before when I tried every key including spacebar, but now it does!! As you said, maybe my keyboard's spacebar is quirky!!! However, the system-problem definitely kicks in on every save where there is one or more space in the save-name.
Anyone else who hits this problem, will benefit from our forum discussion and your solution!!!
Thanks a million, Gribbler!!! Regards, Wendy