Why is data not saved when you re-check?

I just spent over three hours on a submission of the credits of a 2011 short film involving many people already in the database, but it failed to reload after numerous rechecks as I added more data in different categories as I went through the end credits.  This random occurrence seems to have cost me all my work, as I could not find it in my submission history.  Considering that every piece of data has to be submitted in its own field, there's no real practical way to save, other than "save for later," which takes you out of what you're doing.  There needs to be a more convenient way to save your data, and it is counterintuitive that these rechecks aren't saved somewhere.  There's no good reason a glitch should have cost me all my work on the submission.