Unable to save files in Illustrator

I want to express my frustration with Adobe. I put 200+ hours into creating artwork in Adobe Illustrator last fall/winter, and now that work is gone. 

I saved my document every time I worked on it. Every time I opened Adobe Illustrator, the welcome screen showed my art and I was able to open the work from there. But now it is completely gone. I believed I had been saving it on my computer too, but whenever I try opening the files I get a message that says "the shortcut no longer exists" or something like that, and the files are empty. 

Adobe seems to be the only software that does not reliably "save" the work I create when I press "save". 

I just finished talking to support for an hour and a half, and the ultimate response I got was "you need to create your file again". 

This is completely unacceptable. 

When I press "save", I expect my work to be saved! In any other software, I press "save", and when I reopen the software I can reopen my file exactly as it was when I "saved" it. For some reason this does not work in Adobe Illustrator. Whether it is saved in my computer, in the software itself, or in the cloud, I don't care, but it needs to be saved somewhere. 

ADOBE, PLEASE STREAMLINE YOUR SAVING SO WHEN I PRESS "SAVE", I CAN BE SURE MY WORK WILL BE SAVED. 

I should not have to navigate convoluted controls to save my work as it appears on the screen, let alone have it disappear entirely.