I revived this old thread because it has come to my attention that some people still think that there is a save/load bug existing in XinX. The bug was FIXED months ago.
To mapmakers: Make certain that all player colours put in the map shows when starting the game. Putting just garrisons owned by colour that owns nothing else is a player that won't show up when starting the game (when you are choosing what colour you want to be), which was repotedly the problem that caused the save/load error in XinX and Mud.
Bug was one of the hardest to detect since the bug existed only in online game.
On a related issue; the heroes in underground are meant for AI (they're actually given to computer player if AI is in the game). Second towns will never be guarded by them.