Pausing the emulation before loading a save state

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Sometimes when a game freeze,pressing F4 to load a save state,nothing happens...actually it does,the command is executed but only if:
1.You pause(F8)=>run the game
2.Restart the game(it will auto load the save state(even tho the option for that is not enabled)

So would it be better,when you press F4 to first pause the emulation,then load the state and then run the emulation(this method never failed me even once).