The only way I know of to save a game is at the end of each year, after the trophy screen and ranking displays. [checkmark to proceed] There will be comparison results for the year you just played and the previous year, which shows you what the land tax is and your maximum loan amount, expenses, among other things; off to the left of the checkmark is a box that asks if you want to auction off your park. If you move the direction pad pointer over that, select it with a button press, the park goes to auction and after bidding has concluded you will be able to enter a name you want your save to be (I suggest 8 characters or less) and it saves your balance AND any map progress you have made. It isn't real obvious that the option is there because the box around the auction option is the same background color as the rest of the screen. Unfortunately, the next map location requires you to have a successful park to be able to afford the next location. (It took 20 million just to play Japan) This is why I pause the game for long lengths of time.
This is probably something that should be in one of those videos that tells people how to navigate gameplay options. I sleep late in the day and places close earlier than they used to. It's hard for me to look into things like video capture, but I may get there in a couple months.
