The 'lost connection' message is a bug, thanks for reporting it.
Currently ( Toribash 2.8 ) it's not possible to have emotes in a single player game.
Temporary workaround:
You can edit the replay manually (in note pad or some other simple text editor):
Every FRAME text represents a frame where something changed in the replay (changed joints status, etc.)
After a FRAME text, appears other text with info about the current frame until the next FRAME text.
Go to the frame that you want to change.
(e.g. FRAME 60)
Lets say that you want to add an emote to the blue player.
before the next FRAME text, appears a text ANGVEL 1 (a long line with numbers)
Add a new line after it:
EMOTE 1;Write your emote here
and save the replay.
That's it.
EMOTE 1, means emote for player 1.
(red player = #0 , blue player = #1)
If you want to add emote to the red player, add
EMOTE 0;Emote text
after the ANGVEL 0 long line of text.