The save and load buttons are absent from the menu! I can still continue a game from the main menu, but only the active game.

Load from Main Menu won't appear unless there are games saved.

To save the game, you have to click "Game" on the top menu while playing, then click on an empty slot, then only will "Save" appear (and "Load" if there is already a game saved there).

More specifically, I believe Load won't appear unless a particular save game slot has a save (the autosave).

Note for the OP: A game can be saved without entering any sort of name for it on the Save/Load screen. The file system name for the save file is NOT whatever was entered on the Save/Load screen.

This caused me a little trouble when I first started playing.

"Where the heck is my save!?"

"Oh, I saved it with a blank name."

Master of Magic has two save concepts, the current game and the user's saved games. The current game is saved as SAVE9.GAM and is updated every 4 turns, I believe. Hitting F10 during play will save the current state into SAVE9.GAM. The user's saved games are numbered SAVE1.GAM and so on. These are only updated when the user commands.

If you start MoM with command line WIZARDS.EXE instead of MAGIC.EXE, then the game will directly load SAVE9.GAM and not show the intro movie or menu. F11 quits without going through menus.

Thanks, guys!