New Game + bugging out and erasing save

So today I almost reached the Aery when I turned in my quest Alphinaud disappeared as did my save. Nothing I can do will recover it and that is a bummer. But here is the thing, why on earth are the base expansions one chapter? I understand that they have done it by patch but there is a big difference between 3.0 and 3.1 in its length. Now if I want to experience HW with a friend who is playing through the game for the first time I have two choices either do all the quests up to level 55 including one trial plus Sohm Al or just watch him stream his progress through twitch or watch the cutscenes from an inn room. I do not have to break it down how both options are annoying. I was enjoying playing with a friend and honestly after clearing and crafting everything in 5.2 this has been a nice reason to log on.

I also feel this can be mitigated if the dev team broke up base expansions into more biteable chapters. Why not make it 50-51, 52-53, 54-55 etc or hell make each zone their own chapter if that is possible. That way when the game glitches out and my save gets erased even though all I did was turn in a quest I can at least go back a reasonable amount of quests and pluck through them again. But now I have to do Western Coerthas, Sea of Clouds pt 1, stuff outside of Ishgard, Dravanian Forelands, Ravana, Sohm Al, and stupid Moogle fetch quests. Yes I can skip all until I am back where I need to be but that is easily two hours if not more of running and skipping. Either fix this bug (which you’d think by now this would be gone) or break up the base expansions so people don’t get screwed over. Really bummed I won’t be enjoying hw again, bc I am not doing that slog again, thanks.

Also if anyone knows why this glitch or bug happened can you please tell me so when I go through Stb and Shb I won’t have this happen to me again.

The base expansions are 2 chapters and the patches are another 2 chapters.
Most likely you hit the end of chapter 1 of HW and need to start chapter 2.