woah... glad to see there's still people playing this
Anyways i got a good little bit of advice for the first level.
If memory serves, your first objective is to amass 1000 spice, right? usually, at the start of the level, you get 1000 spice, which drops by one to 999.
now here's the best bit: you dont need to build a refinery to get 1000 credits.
simply quit and enter the level. if it goes down again, reload and try again. eventually it will stay on 1000 after the level starts and all you have to do is wait until the mission complete message shows up
hope i helped you save time =D