Any way to save state of Minecraft in case I die?

I am providing this answer based on the following assumption.

1. You are playing the world on hardcore mode.
2. You want to recover the world and continue on just as if you have died in survival.
3. You havent changed any mods/ updated the game since you first created your world.

If this is the case, there is a way. It would involve the following steps.

1. Obtain the seed of the world.
2. Create a new world using that seed with the same settings at this point you can change your world type to creative, survival or remain in hardcore.
3. Copy the newly generated world's level.dat and level.dat_old file over to the hardcore world.

This would essentially revive you as if you have died in survival.

Exact instructions can be found here

http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/support/unmodified-minecraft-client/tutorials-and-faqs/1871629-how-to-save-your-world-after-death-in-hardcore