Wow.
Alright, so, before i even transferred/launched the game for the first time (when this all started), i decided to move over my old epsxe save (which was incorrectly formatted for the Vita still) so i could pick up from where i left off. Now, i immediately went to check for the save through the PSP XMB and saw it wasn't correct yet, but i figured i would take care of it after i fixed the main issue at hand...
Thus, the OP.
After Padoca85 confirmed it was definitely a problem on my end, i went in and thought about it a bit more. And figured that the save was the ONLY difference between that game and the others i tested. "But surely a bogus save that isn't even loaded yet would never keep this game from loading!" i thought. But whatever, i did it anyway.
Then the freakin' game launched.