I think this should be fixed, because while it might not be a bug, it's certainly bad game mechanics.
It is too easy and too tempting to abuse this. Even if I wouldn't personally use it, the option of using it would be constantly there which would give me negative feeling. Like somebody said, they use it only if they get crappy loot. Thus, every time you get loot, you start wondering whether it's crappy enough? Should you reload?
Yes, there are just a number of reasons to remove "save scumming" whenever possible, just as there are a number of reasons to remove the potential for infinite XP from summoned minions. It's sloppy, it can be bad for game balance, and it's surprising to even have a loophole like this in the game.
The excuse of these flaws
"only impacting those who abuse them because this is a single player game" is a poor excuse and flawed logic that can be applied to anything, all the way up to an optional "God Mode". It only impacts the player using it, right?
At some point the developers have to decide whether or not they mind having an exploitable mechanic like this in the game. If this "feature" is going to remain intact, then the developers should completely embrace it rather than leaving it as is: pop open a menu displaying the entire loot table whenever someone opens one of these special containers and instruct the player to pick X number of items from it. At least that way they're playing the game rather than gaming a weakness in the design.
Or, pick a better way to spawn loot so it can't be as easily abused - optional or not. Exploits are generally optional to begin with, but that never stopped us from suggesting they were fixed.
I don't mind MOBs offering different random loot once an encounter is defeated because you have to defeat the encounter each time to access a reward. But this process:
1) Loot container
2) Reload saved game
3) Repeat step 1
..until you get something you like is silly and broken.
