Ah, interesting!
I’ve never tried to load a saved game that had more than one human player so I can’t speak to how it should work, but if it’s something that worked for you in the past, make a post in General Discussion about it. You can even add it to the patch notes thread which the developers seem to watch.
Mention that you know about the effects of the latest patch; however, you just tested it today and the saved game failed to load. Include the messages you/friends get when trying.