2 questions about spore?

1. I was playing spore on my space empire earlier and it was running fine. I closed it, anda few hours later I came back. When I tried to open my space empire, It just shuts down spore and says a problem occured. Why is this happening? How do I fix it?



2. I found my other empire in space while trying to get to the center of the galaxy. If I attack it, does it affect my other save file? Or does it do nothing to it?



thanks in advance2 questions about spore?
interesting