Strictly speaking, Devs have enabled saves. Just logout and a save is made. Yes, yes, this is not what OP is looking for but there it is. You just lose the rested bonus when logging back in. You can do this copy& paste manually and i have no doubt that some clever modder will exploit this in the future, if not already.

But, is it worth to lose the meaning of death? No, absolutely not. Without any meaning to death there is no meaning in surviving, and thus no game.

Second biome, the black forest, grants access to teleports. I would suggest you try to get them set up.

I know it is hard at start since everything but deers and birds try to murder you but you need to get over it and start treating every new situation with care. A new blood pressure raising learning exercise :)
Just started a new game and got absolutely destroyed just because i did not simply run away. There would had not been any dishonor in living another day but wanted to see if my shield could parry starred skeleton. Well, now i know and after some hiking returned the favor.