I have the same issue with the advice causing the game to hang.
The advice screen on the left shows up, then that's it. I haven't even gotten close to getting space ship, but then again maybe I'm just slow. It seems that last time I quit playing it was around 1500 AD which is at about the same time as I am now.
It can't be that the advisers ran out of ideas, the one town only has three buildings.
This is very frustrating, as I'm not very good at picking my own city improvements. I use the advisers as a bit of a crutch.