You place the letter "A" then wait for "Mounie" to start accumulating, then you see the upgrade price to the next letter and quit the game because of how long it's taking from the very start of the game.
Okay, so it seems to be happening to older saves, too, including ones that loaded fine previously. I had not modified any game files, but I tried unpacking the zip in a new folder and the problem happened again with that instance.
Is there a way to get a second penguin at this point? I was hoping to get two igloos sustaining each other, but Pingu's the only one who showed up so far.