If anyone runs into a similar bug and is curious as to what may be wrong, after 3 days and ~16 hours of work I have corrected my entire system to work properly. The KEY THING that was wrong is that all my login, saving, and loading logic was in my game instance because any data/logic in the game instance can be carried across levels. .HOWEVER, anything in the game instance is NOT replicated. That is why there were so many bugs, the server and client had a different idea of what was being saved and loaded. So i had to re -create all that logic in the player character blueprint. Now, a player first connects to the server from the main menu, joins the main world, is given a character but is not given control of it until the log in. When they do log in, the save slot is loaded for their account on a server event, the variables in the savegame are all replicated, and it properly loads all their stats and items. No bugs. If you have any questions on this comment or send me a PM.
Cheers,
Dalton