Ah saving is a bit tricky, if I remember correctly You have to save in-game AND in no$gba somehow (bite me, I don't know why this way)

Depends, there are games that has one place that must be skipped somehow and they work pretty fine
For example Rune Factory Oceans on one of the latest Dolphin builds had stuck moment in the tutorial part, after that everything was ok
If that's about intro I can try to skip it in a minute, if that's some moment later in game, please try to provide me how much "later" in game it is or something
Oh and region of the game, I think I has US version on my DS