It makes me cringe in sympathy whenever I hear that people aren't saving at regular intervals. You should really turn on seasonal, or at least yearly autosaves because you really never know when the game is going to crash or throw an unkillable beast at you in the current version.
Before Windows 7 I would agree with you. Now, even with compressed saves turned off, Win 7 throws a fit when I save the game. Since I play in fullscreen mode the "This Program is not responding, blah, blah, blah" box always causes the game to drop out of fullscreen, while in the middle of saving mind you, leading to all sorts of fun and graphical anomalies. Sure, there are ways around it (and I might be a rare example as my 3.2GHz dual-core w/ 3.38GB/4GB of RAM machine is weak by modern examples), but I'd just as soon not dance with the O.S. at the start of every season. (Though there's always the Linux option now, I suppose. Or even Mac if I want to watch my Mac Mini cry.)
As for the original poster: You now have a guard dog. Wall off the world and let your new vomit monster go to town on visiting goblins and elves. Of course you will never see your friends from the MountainHomes again. But that won't matter much anyway after the liaison dies and you have 15 mayors ordering the entire populace to be executed for failing to make slade bongs and crack pipes. Just remember to not equip the Captain of the Guard with a steel battleaxe and someone might just survive. Enjoy