I think they are permanent. A right pain trying to find it again, stuff you place in containers remains, and dead bodies from previous battles you have fought also remain, so I don't see why it should not still be there.
I am surprised by your statement of just giving up if you might have to restart, I have had 2 starts to get used to characters and how they work in combat and have a Co-op to lvl 4 (now stopped) a co-op game to lvl 5 and a solo game to lvl 2, its too much fun to just give up this early in the game.
Also each time you start again you know whats coming and can blitz the conversations and get down to looting and killing to get back to where you where pretty damn quickly
