Will my Early Access save work in 1.0?

No. The 1.0 announcement says EA saves will not load in 1.0 because the logistics system, the road system, and the excavation system were all restructured. An EA base does not map onto the new structure.

Are my save files deleted when I install 1.0?

No. The 1.0 announcement says save files are not deleted. They simply will not load under 1.0.

How do I keep playing my current EA base?

The developer is keeping the last Early Access build available as a Steam beta branch called Previous. Right-click The Crust in your library, open Properties, open the Betas tab, and select Previous.

Is there a converter for EA to 1.0 saves?

No. The 1.0 announcement is explicit that there is no conversion path, because the structural changes (logistics rewrite, roads, excavation overhaul) mean an EA base does not map onto 1.0.

The Crust 1.0 Save Compatibility: EA Migration Guide

The Crust Tech Tree Research and Version Migration

Sourcing note: This page is built almost entirely from the official 1.0 launch announcement on the Steam news feed for AppID 1465470. Where a fact is a direct developer statement it is marked CONFIRMED. The community wiki on wiki.gg does not currently have an article on save compatibility as of the most recent edit on 2026-09-06; that gap is also documented.

What the developer has said

The 1.0 announcement opens its “One thing to know before tomorrow” section with a single direct statement: “1.0 is not save-compatible with Early Access builds.” That statement is followed by the reason and the practical implications, which are worth quoting in full because they are the only authoritative source for this topic.

“1.0 is not save-compatible with Early Access builds. The logistics system was restructured from the ground up - that’s where the up-to-50% performance gain on large bases comes from. On top of that, a road system has been added and the excavation system has been overhauled. An Early Access base simply doesn’t map onto the new structure, so there’s no way to convert old saves. It’s the price of the changes that made bigger bases possible.” (1.0 announcement, Steam news feed)

The announcement then gives three concrete bullet points:

Your save files aren’t deleted — they just won’t load in 1.0.
Want to finish your current base? The last Early Access build stays available as a Steam beta branch. Right-click The Crust in your library → Properties → Betas → select “Previous”. Your old saves keep working there.
The full explanation — and everything that’s new in 1.0 — is in tomorrow’s release post.

Why the migration is impossible

The developer names three structural reasons. None of them is a marketing line; they are the actual systems that changed.

Logistics system rewritten from the ground up. The 1.0 release announcement attributes the “up to 50% performance gain on large bases” specifically to this rewrite. Whatever an EA base used to do with belts, distributors, and drones does not have a 1:1 mapping in 1.0.
Road system added. Roads are a new layer of base planning. A pre-1.0 base has no road graph at all, so there is nothing to migrate.
Excavation system overhauled. The 1.0 announcement mentions this alongside roads; an EA base’s dig map cannot be ported across the change.

Together these three changes mean a 1.0 base and an EA base are not the same shape of object. The developer’s phrase “doesn’t map onto the new structure” is the technical reason there is no converter.

How to keep playing an EA base after 1.0 launches

The developer-published procedure is to use the Steam beta branch system. The exact steps in the announcement are:

In your Steam library, right-click The Crust.
Choose Properties.
Open the Betas tab.
In the branch dropdown, select Previous.

When you select the Previous branch, Steam will roll the game back to the last Early Access build. Your EA saves keep working in that branch. When you want to play 1.0 again, switch the branch back to None (or whatever the live branch is named in your client) and Steam will roll forward to 1.0; your EA saves will then be ignored by 1.0 but will still be available if you return to the Previous branch.

This is the only published procedure for continuing an EA run. There is no in-game migration tool, no save-import option, and no companion app that converts between the two formats. The developer explicitly says there is no conversion path.

What this page does not claim

No ETA on a future converter. The announcement does not promise one. The phrasing is “there’s no way to convert old saves.”
No automated cloud backup of EA saves. Steam Cloud does sync saves across machines, but the announcement does not promise anything more than what Steam Cloud already does.
No official word on whether 1.0.x patches will continue to break saves. The announcement covers the 1.0 launch break specifically; later minor patches may or may not be save-compatible and the developer has not stated a policy.
No official word on whether your EA saves will eventually become loadable in a future build. The announcement only commits to keeping the Previous branch live.

Sourcing

Claim	Source	Status
1.0 is not save-compatible with EA builds	1.0 announcement, Steam news feed	CONFIRMED
The logistics system was rewritten from the ground up	1.0 announcement, Steam news feed	CONFIRMED
A road system has been added	1.0 announcement, Steam news feed	CONFIRMED
The excavation system has been overhauled	1.0 announcement, Steam news feed	CONFIRMED
EA save files are not deleted	1.0 announcement, Steam news feed	CONFIRMED
The last EA build is available as the Previous beta branch	1.0 announcement, Steam news feed	CONFIRMED
The branch is selected via Steam Library → Properties → Betas → Previous	1.0 announcement, Steam news feed	CONFIRMED
EA saves do not load in 1.0 (informally corroborated)	community wiki on wiki.gg (no article yet)	unverified
Wiki article on save compatibility does not yet exist	Special:RecentChanges on wiki.gg	WIKI_CONSENSUS