I'm sorry to report that I've messed around with various methods to try and fix the save, but it looks like it isn't going to work. If it's any consolation, we were nearly done anyway. I've reset the OP to its initial list of available content.
How about every time we reach our quality conditions (and are happy with the state of the zoo, of course), we move up to the next game? Eventually we get to Planet Zoo, and then we start really making weird stuff.
That's the plan, pretty much. I don't actually have Planet Zoo yet, though, so I can't promise we'll play that one. I don't know if my computer can actually run it, and I don't know if it plays well with a screenshot LP like this. We'll also be skipping the Xbox reboot. I do own that one, and it's probably the most consistently disappointing video game I've ever played. It's not even bad enough to be entertaining, just constantly disappointing in comparison to the original games or Planet Zoo. For now, I was planning to run Zoo Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon 2, and then maybe Jurassic Park:Operation Genesis. There are a lot of zoo builder games out there, so we could potentially do this for a while if we wanted to. These three are easily the ones I know best, though.
At least our next map will be bigger. I'm upgrading from Small to Medium. I could set it to Large, but Medium should give us more than enough room to build as much as we want. More importantly, I thought you'd all like the map choices for Medium better.
Reclaim
(Just to be clear, this map only has two volcanoes and a lava pit to start with, although it also has geysers and other related features. Of course, we can always "upgrade" the landscape later once we get the ability to place lava ourselves.)