diff --git a/stellarisdashboard/parsing/save_parser.py b/stellarisdashboard/parsing/save_parser.py
index dd83a43..c1e6445 100644
--- a/stellarisdashboard/parsing/save_parser.py
+++ b/stellarisdashboard/parsing/save_parser.py
@@ -383,8 +383,13 @@ def parse_save(self, filename):
         self.save_filename = filename
         logger.info(f"Parsing Save File {self.save_filename}...")
         with zipfile.ZipFile(self.save_filename) as save_zip:
-            # encoding guess based on EU4 wiki https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Save-game_editing#File_locations
-            gamestate = save_zip.read("gamestate").decode("cp1252")
+            gamestate = save_zip.read("gamestate")
+            try:
+                # default encoding guess based on EU4 wiki https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Save-game_editing#File_locations
+                gamestate = gamestate.decode("cp1252")
+            except UnicodeError:
+                # attempt UTF-8, ignoring any further errors
+                gamestate = gamestate.decode("utf-8", errors="ignore")
         self.parse_from_string(gamestate)
         return self.gamestate_dict