At the start of the game, you can choose to allow your character to die in the field. They age and die from age no matter what, as of now. I'm hoping that becomes optional in the future.
You'd be right, my system has 8GB. Looking into more atm, we'll see if I can get anything delivered during all this. Also looking into an SSD. Haven't upgraded my PC in 4 years so this was bound to happen eventually, thanks for the reply.