While that is totally true, I don't think the number of references to that name should count as an argument. He's already using placeholders a lot of times in dialogs, ie:
"Julia looks happy. What's the harm in making my {julia_kate_soft} happy?"
"Julia is my {julia_kate} and my roommate."
"Yes, I go here when I get bored sitting home. The coffee here is amazing. And sometimes I make sure my {alice_lisa} Lisa gets home safely, she's working as a waitress here."
"My {max_to_sisters} Max. You'll meet him if you visit my place."
"No. These aren't mine. Originally they belonged to Ann, my {ann_to_family}."
Introducing new ones could be done with a simple search and replace. But I suppose he has his reasons to not make them variable in the first place.
The save editor only does basic file operations in the save game location. If they didn't change the algorithm after 0.22 (it's the last version I tried it with) it should still work fine and saves should be readable by the editor and game. However, of course I can't rule out any bugs in the editor. I'll download the newest game version and see if I have the save issues as well. Right now it's hard to be helpful as I couldn't replicate the bug with the old version.
Cheers,