My crew is missing on m effect 2..?

I tried looking up this matter and I see this happens after accepting the "Reaper IFF" mission. Well, I had only been playing for 4 hours. I only unlocked Grunt, Garrus, the creepy alien doctor guy and Jack. I got called into a briefing with the Illusive Man and I was sent to Horizon. When I got back to the Normandy , my crew is all completely vanished. Nobody has even said anything about this, I got an email from the illusive man saying something like: "the loss of your crew is horrible, but they knew what they got into when they signed up" - wtf? do i have to restart this game? I read about the Omega 4 relay... I went in and something was said about "the longer we wait the worse chance it is that we can get the crew back..."... LOL.. I am only level 12 so I doubt I should start the suicide mission and rush into things right now to get my crew back. Please help.