I had a CTD that I think might have corrupted a save of mine. The error log gives the message:
Exception while init loading file: C:/Users/Alex/AppData/LocalLow/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld by Ludeon Studios\Saves\Northwestern Menbum (Permadeath).rws
System.Xml.XmlException: '', hexadecimal value 0x10, is an invalid character. Line 358994, position 23.
Exception from asynchronous event: System.Xml.XmlException: '', hexadecimal value 0x10, is an invalid character. Line 358994, position 23.
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw (System.Exception e) [0x00027] in <1d98d70bb7d8453b80c25aa561fdecd1>:0
When I opened the save with Notepad++, the line in question shows this:
<id>Plant_Grass6DLE1868</id>
With the DLE in a black square. There are several other black squares with letters in a few places after this point, replacing what should be normal characters like brackets, numbers, letters, etc. The ones I see are NUL, FS, SI.
Assuming that those are the corrupted points in the file, would going through and "fixing" them restore my game to functioning? I've never tried to fix a save file like this. I avoid modifying them for obvious reasons.