Yeah there are many bugs with saving, and i am currently quite busy irl so finding time to work on the game in a manner that it requires is hard.
Not all items should be able to be given to npcs, that is a bug.
Giving items to the npcs was based off of what happens in the book, you can give items/talk or attack.
The hidden statues are able to be attacked yes, but they don't give anything, that can be fixed in a future update.