Is your hack shared anywhere? I think I hit this bug last time played with my brother.
Diffing the game.dat we use vs an "untouched" cracked one there are a few more differences than I expected (I at one point fixed the random version number and the 3:30 auto defeat if the game thinks you copied the game illegaly).
If you send me a mail to the email in my profile, I'll send you the binary!