Bear with me if I'm missing the obvious or something. How do I save my progress?

The game continuously saves your progress.

This is an MMO. Everything you do is saved to their servers consistently. It's actually impossible not to have your progress saved.

I see. So there's no "reloading" either? I've never played an MMO, so I have no idea how any of this works.

What about "dieing." What happens when I die? I have not had the pleasure of experiencing demise yet.

I died in the starting area and it respawned me at the closest wayshrine.

No reloading.

When you are killed you can come back to life on the spot (with an item) or at set locations (if you don't have or wish to use the item), with a penalty in the form of damage to your items and the inconvenience of running back.

You can't load a previous period, that's correct. The world is constantly moving and changing; you're very much a part of that world. Whatever decisions you make will be permanent; that's the beauty of an MMO. Just don't worry about things like your skill points. There is a feature that allows you to reset them later on.

As for dying. You either have the choice of raising on the spot with a durability penalty to your gear; or raising at a nearby shrine. If another player is close by with a soul gem, they can also raise you.

Have fun!

The almighty Hevnoraak, dieing Impossible. Anyways good to see you in the Beta. If you have an AD character let me know, once the game releases, I'm going EB, for my main, I just want to save it, for my main.

I'm on right now, still exploring Auridon.

My userID is... surprisingly enough... Lord_Hevnoraak.

I'll send you a message shortly, just need to switch characters.

I think I sent you a message I have no idea if it worked.

All progress is automatically saved. If you die you simply respawn at the nearest wayshrine. Once done, nothing can be undone.