So I found a work around for the save file error, I think.
I made two manual saves to see if I could avoid the appearance bug issue, but that resulted in those and a few auto save files being corrupted for two hours back. I ended up deleting the manual saves because they weren't working, but I found after loading an old save and then loading the newest auto save file I had (thankfully wasn't too far off from what my manual saves were), it was restored as well as the other previously corrupted/not working autosaves. Albeit it was still loading the character creator sim, so I went to the mirror in Varric's room to reset my appearance (if it has your custom appearance saved there and in your character menu, just not in the actual game - but double check) and it's been working so far.
Shouldn't have to do this, but I hope it helps for the time being until they patch it...
