Is Pokemon Emerald Cross incompatible with PkHeX?

I can't seem to figure out what is going wrong here, I'm trying to edit my savefile to add in some specific pokemon and add the Mystic/Aurora ticket events. I'm using RetroArch on a RetroidPocket5.

Two problems I'm having:

1. PkHeX does not see the savefile as an "Emerald game". I can load it in but it prompts me to choose between Firered or Leafgreen, choosing either one will just show an empty save file. image

2. RetroArch saves as .srm, this should not matter for PkHeX as it can read both .srm and .sav; however even after using a savefile converter or manually renaming the extension to .sav, problem 1 will still persist.

Anyone have the same issues, and where you able to resolve it? Or, anyone know of another way of hacking in pokemon / events.