My issues with The Sims 3 started at Island Paradise. Please help if you can.

Hello, and thanks a lot in advance to anyone who replies to this post. I'll start off by saying that I have followed all of the installation/patch/ultimate fix instructions and have installed, cracked, updated, and fixed The Sims 3 and all expansions correctly. Here's my problem-- when I install Island Paradise I end up having to do a system restore on my computer. Island Paradise runs perfectly the first time around, but as soon as I save and exit and go to restart the game again, it never loads. It just stays on that black loading screen you get right before The Sims 3 game actually launches (I hope I am describing this well enough). So it works the first time I install it, but every time after that it just freezes on that loading screen. University seems to be the last expansion that'll run on my computer without any problems. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure this out and I'm now completely out of ideas and things to try. Well, at least that's what I think. I'm hoping I might have missed something and someone can give me the solution to this problem. And like I said, I always default to doing a system restore to my University installation so I can avoid losing my saved games and CC. I do this instead of renaming the Sims 3 folder because it's such a pain in the ass putting all of my CC back into the game. By the way, all of the CC I've downloaded has come exclusively from The Sims Resource and after all of my troubleshooting I am 99.9% certain the CC isn't the problem.
I feel like I've done absolutely everything there is to do to get this game to work right. I've uninstalled and re-installed the game and all expansions, cracked, done ultimate fixes, erased CC, updated and patched to the latest patches available on this site, renamed my Sims 3 folder, and completely re-installed windows and still, installing island paradise screws up everything. I really, really hope that someone can help me.

Here's my dxdiag for you all to take a look at. Please let me know if I need to give you any more information, and thanks again.

System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 10/26/2013, 12:03:21
       
   Operating System: Windows 8 Pro 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (9200.win8_gdr.130410-1505)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Acer
       System Model: Aspire X1420G
               BIOS: Default System BIOS
          Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 645 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.1GHz
             Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4096MB RAM
          Page File: 2318MB used, 2609MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\Windows
    DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
   User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
 System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
    DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
     DxDiag Version: 6.02.9200.16384 64bit Unicode

**My graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti**

By the way, I've also messed with DEP following the directions on this site and it doesn't seem to have affected my game at all.

I'm pretty sure this is caused by the downloadedsims.index file in Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\SavedSims - just delete it and try loading your game up. I've had to do this MANY times since Island Paradise!

I haven't even installed Island Paradise since the last time I did a system restore, but I deleted that file anyway. I'm hoping that I get some more info from people so I feel comfortable installing that expansion again. I really don't want the headache. This game is so damned temperamental!

This hasn't happened to anyone else?