Has anyone seen this issue before?

Playing through Chrono Cross on a slim PS2 - Everything runs smoothly. But every single time I go to Lizard Rock South, the map loads slower.

First time, it was more or less a normal load. Second time, a few seconds extra. But from there, it's become insane. Now I'm trapped on the beach after the cutscene with Leena, because letting it sit for 30 minutes isn't enough to get into Lizard Rock South.

And what's weird is every other zone loads instantly. I'm not sure if I got into a weird game state, or what, but I don't want to run through the entire first part of the game again to find out it's just the disc. Q.Q

I found a solution, taking the disc out of the tray during loading of this zone/screen and replacing it again completes loading and I was able to continue.

But between this post and now I actually went ahead and bought Radical Dreamers edition on Steam, so I've been playing there instead lol