Efect, both things actually present in the game.

"Load game" in the middle of the battle wasn't available in original game as well (neither in heroes3), but you can retreat and load afterwards. From map view, you can load by pressing floppy disk button in the right pane.
And you actually can look at obelisks map - this option is under "flag" button in the same right pane.

As for updating the game - I successfully updated the game from app manager, and both data files and game saves survived this update. So I believe you can update from app manager as well.