The game has no less than three revolving quick saves and auto saves at every castle for a reason!
This is definitely not an iron man game,you're basically playing a "challenge" which means you have to avoid all such combats and not complain about it
That said I actually agree with you that it would nice if a monster pop up window appeared (like the one when you hover over a mob) and if you have scouting gave you numbers and ratings etc
But that said it only takes a second to go - holy fook! How many mages/turrents? Sigh sorry archmage dude, guess I won't be able to suppress your staff yet and click the load button
