ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Steam is now FUBAR so I figured I'd simply play the way I started - with the TOME4 I downloaded right from the site. So I click the launcher, it starts to update. And then it gets stuck and stops. Some message about it not having permission. If I attempt to Play the game at that point I simply get an endless cascade of error messages.

So, would uninstalling and reinstalling the game work? And if so, is there a way to do it where I won't lose my saves? Not sure what to do to make the game patch so I can play again

Run the patcher as administrator?

Not sure about uninstall as to whether it deletes save files. Most games don't. But you could always back up your save files first. Or just not use the uninstaller and delete the ToME4 folder instead.