Is there any way to continue from a save without have to run through the entire intro sequence?

Pressing Esc skips the intro, then you can just select restore from the menu and voilà.

Or, run it in DOSBox, with MUNT/CM32L ROMs, and use the "i" command line parameter:

"lure i"

That skips the intro - no need to press ESC until it finally registers it, plus you get unbroken excellent sound and fewer bugs from the poorly reverse-engineered engine used in SCUMMVM

Enjoy