Rodney this happen once before on the rough trial somethings did not get saved and I embed before saving Version 16 32bit
Robert I animated the material by changing the ambient color level overtime and it still shows it set just does not happen I also changed the y and z direction of the material and the amount of displacement over time and had the transparency and light brightness ( added light inside model ) vary randomly and it appears the transparency changes at least did not save either
here is the project file
dustball1.zip