What happens if you get caught?
you reload from last saved game?

I found that if you fail and reload the guards still come after you. This happens since patch 1 ><
Maybe it autosaves if you get caught? Il bet if you disable auto saves and reload your last quick save you can get away with it.
No, I removed the load key binding an manually load my saves (otherwise my cat does it for me mid-combat by stepping on the F8 key).