I understand your concerns about the difficulty in traversing the terrain. There will be more indications of where to go and how to get there as the game develops. For now, it is more akin to a survival sandbox where you just do whatever you want with no guidance, like the game Ark. The quests are almost a distraction right now because it is very hard to finish some without lots of exploring and I realize that the size of the map and the barren parts turns Windstone into a walking simulator at times. I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm just letting you know I'm very aware of these issues and am working towards improving them as the game develops.
I'm sorry about the save file. I'm not sure why update 19 broke it if update 18 didn't, because 18 had all the major changes to the saving system. I fear that the UE4 game engine update from 4.11 to 4.19 in Update 19 is the culprit. If so, this is the first update that I think has broken game saves and requires a new game and I apologize.
Thank you for confirming that there is an issue with loading locking up at 40%. This is a priority and I am going to focus solely on this issue and push another update as soon as I think it is fixed.
The recent addition of the level streaming system in Update 18 and the UE4 upgrade to 4.19 in Update 19 are massive changes that took a ton of work but sadly that took a lot of time away from world building and game mechanics development quite a bit. It will all be worth it in the end and once the kinks are worked out I'll be able to get back into working on gameplay more and updates should be more stable.
Thank you for your patience and your feedback.