Diablo II had an interesting system with regard to saving. You couldn't save in the normal sense of the term - the kind that allows you to go back to your last saved game and try your fight again. When you die, you respawn back in the safe zone (at least, unless you're one of the complete lunatics who play hardcore and get no respawning), but without all your gear - you'll have to get back to the place you died to go pick your gear up, and if the creature(s) that killed you are still hanging around there, as they generally are, that can be tricky. Though if the situation is really too impossible, you can quit and reload, and your corpse with your gear will be transported inside the safe zone. The only thing you'll have lost then is some gold - and whichever progress you'd already made on the enemy you were fighting when you died. Oh, and all monsters respawn - if you died a long way from a waypoint, there'll be more than a little to redo.

It's certainly a system that motivates you to avoid dying more than a simple "reload from save game" would.