Paragraph style crashes / seems to reference previous file

I've created a relatively complex paragraph style that gets corrupted every time I save the indesign file under a different name (I save as obsessively with the date of any major revisions in case of catastrophe).

I fixed it once by replacing the style and re-creating it in the newly named file, then did a test save as and the same thing happened again.  The issue is I'll try and type in the text box with that paragraph style applied, and inDesign freezes out (although tends to recover after a minute, not completely crash).  It appears to be trying to reference an older version of the file (dated 07/17) - I've attached an image of the message that pops up while it's frozen / loading.

I super-tried to clean up the current version of the file (dated 08/16) by replacing the offending paragraph style (and the nested character style) with a new ones (created in the 08/16 file).  Still having the same issue.

Also I've noticed one other thing - a couple times now I've force-closed the file when it's having issues.  When I open it afterwards inDesign automatically also opens the file that is somehow being referenced (07/17).  This doesn't happen if I've saved and closed the current file normally, only when I've had to force-close it.

So clearly somehow these files are tied together and I CANNOT figure out how.  It might not even be the paragraph style, that just seems to be the trigger.

Any thoughts / help much appreciated.

****UPDATE**** I think (fingers crossed) I've fixed it.  I deleted the referenced file (07/17) and when indesign tried to recover it I told it to delete all recovery information.  So I think somehow that initial file was corrupting my entire indesign by trying to open every time I tried to do anything at all complicated.  So far seems to be working again....