You ever had a moment where your car was giving you problems, so you took a look when you got home only to wonder how you even made it home in the first place?
That was me investigating reports of issues with loading saves. Turns out a piece of behavior in the engine that was reliable in editor was in fact not reliable behavior (not that it was promised to be, but I will put forth that it was somewhat implied to be) and frankly I'm now surprised myself and other players have any success loading a save.
Thankfully, this is a 15 minute Demo and not a 90 hour RPG so to avoid making promises I can't keep during your playthrough, I'm just gonna... turn saves off for now. 😅