Here's an Autosave Work Around

Whenever you save, save two copies. Call them 1 and 2, or A and B. Whichever you save to second is the one autosave will overwrite. You'll have the other one as a backup of pre-autosave state. That way if the game autosaves something you don't want saved, you can restore the other version. But then, make sure to re-save that version.

Example:

Save to Save1 and Save 2. I lose a game, but only because a bat flew in my window and attacked me. After the game the autosave saves to Save 2. I re-load Save 1 to go back to pre-autosave. Before doing anything, I save back to Save 2, so I again have two copies of the desired state saved. Autosave will again save to Save 2.

Been doing that since 2K9 (even if autosave can be turned off in the previous versions).

You're defintely screwed though if you somehow overwrite your backup save with a faulty or unwanted save so be careful even with a backup.

Copy both save files prior to playing. That way, even if you make a mistake, you still have a pre-mistake copy.