  Ordered electronic phases are intimately related to emerging phenomena such
as high Tc superconductivity and colossal magnetoresistance. The coupling of
electronic charge with other degrees of freedom such as lattice and spin are of
central interest in correlated systems. Their correlations have been
intensively studied from femtosecond to picosecond time scales, while the
dynamics of ordered electronic phases beyond nanoseconds are usually assumed to
follow a trivia thermally driven recovery. Here, we report an unusual slowing
down of the recovery of an electronic phase across a first-order phase
transition, far beyond thermal relaxation time. Following optical excitation,
the recovery time of both transient optical reflectivity and x-ray diffraction
intensity from a charge-ordered superstructure in a La$_{1/3}$Sr$_{2/3}$FeO$_3$
thin film increases by orders of magnitude longer than the independently
measured lattice cooling time when the sample temperature approaches the phase
transition temperature. The combined experimental and theoretical
investigations show that the slowing down of electronic recovery corresponds to
the pseudo-critical dynamics that originates from magnetic interactions close
to a weakly first-order phase transition. This extraordinary long electronic
recovery time exemplifies an interplay of ordered electronic phases with
magnetism beyond thermal processes in correlated systems.
