This has nothing to do with it being the US version before it's release.
This has been a problem since the release of the Japanese game, and it's an issue with emulation that probably has something to do with SD card speed, similar to the Castlevania problem. This problem never seemed to occur with the new Wi-Fi Plaza, but only with things in the GTS building. At first, the GTS itself would never work, and the other features (battle recorder viewer, and box shots) would work SOMETIMES, but most of the time they would freeze too.
After a while, the GTS began to work, and the other features worked less often. It probably has something to do with the location of the data on my card. and yours.