GIMP Version: 2.8.14
Operating System: Windows
OS Version: 10
GIMP Experience: Basic Level

List any relevant plug-ins or scripts:
n/a

List any ERROR messages you received:
GIMP XCF image plug-in could not open image

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I apologize if this is a common problem, I've seen it on a couple of other forums but just can't seem to understand what the issue is in my situation. I'm very new to using forums to get help for issues like this. After I saved the picture, my computer restarted (after saving, the picture had seemingly finished saving by the time this happened from what I could tell). Now, it won't open, and projects the message "GIMP XCF image plug-in could not open image". Many other forum posts said to look at the size of the file, and if it had 0 bytes it was completely corrupted and couldn't be saved, but checking mine, it was 1,081,344 bytes. I'm just confused and upset, this is an artistic piece that I've been working on for ten days+ now and would love to save it. Any help would be appreciated.

After doing some more looking through my file, one of the file viewing programs gave me the message "Error: entire file is binary zeroes"

I remember seeing one forum post (I think on here) where someone looked into the file and found it was entirely zeros, so even though my file isn't 0 bytes, it's just 1,000,000 bytes of zeros. This is most likely the problem, in which case it's trashed, but if anyone thinks differently, I would appreciate any input.

peachtea, welcome to the forum.
Please, be a bit patient because I'm sure that the gurus in the forum will help you without a doubt.
Luck!

I think the file is trashed. (my computer restarted etc) is a clue to what happened.
If you spent a L O N G time making that XCF then maybe windows created a restore point that contains your unfinished work
A reminder to save your work as you go. I often save with different file names so I have a few more options.

I've got an idea what causes corrupted XCF files. In the interests of helping people save hours of work here it is.

On some Gimp projects when you go to save your work and close Gimp you sometimes see an error message like "Gimp is not responding do you want to force close'.
If you do close it while it is effectively still processing something you get a corrupt XCF file.

If Gimp ever completes that process or not I don't know but this could be how the XCFs get corrupted.