I am going to be honest, when I got back onto the game later, my save was lost, so I don't know if the save system is working for me. I also don't put my game into the normal installation style, I install all my game files to the saved games folder in my user account. I just look it up and get playing
edit: The issue with the altar actually happened after the save file was lost, so It might be something else. I will give the save file at some point soon, as it is unavailable as of now