So indeed my suspicions were correct that the offending sprite was NOT in the managed list.

How did this happen?

Well, the sprite was not a dead body, but, blood.

Yup, thats right, the blood fx is what did it in. Turns out that i did not specify the blood sprites to be managed (since they delete themselvs after a set period of time.

However, if one saves the game when blood is on the ground, it will save thier serial in the map, but it wont save thier re-bind stub (since it isnt marked as managed).

Anyhow this was fixed by just making blood managed, no big deal, but a pain to figure out =D


So with luck i've nailed the last save bug, but who knows what waits for me as I venture deeper into the game, saving along the way =)