No that is to be expected. Force close is a kill.
So IMHO always save your settings if there's a change wich is worth saving. (level completed, option saved etc.)
I do even rename the previous settings file as a backup (only once per startup) in case that the save-process gets interrupted by a force-close or other event (disk space full). Naturally I then also have to check for integrity when loading the settings on restart and switch to the backup settings file when encountering problems.