We reached the point (some time ago) where the save icon being a floppy disk makes absolutely no sense to anyone born after a certain time. We could choose a more modern media format and use an icon of that instead, but we would run into the same problem once that media becomes obsolete.
What is a good icon for the function of saving something that can easily be understood by anyone regardless of language or the march of time?
Edit: I know it’s not really an answerable question and is hard but the question is what would you come up with if tasks to design an icon. Given the constraints of the question, what are your best shots at coming up with something that fills the requirements and why do you thing it would work?
No more so than saving. Either saving and loading use free filesystem browsing interfaces, slots that are embedded into a single file/non-descreet location on disk, or they save into a limited scope of files/folders on disk. The last system seems to be the most common in modern UX within non-compatible apps with the first system being preferred for apps dealing with common files (like a text editor).
Also, there is a whole thing with Save As vs. Save - though with a new file/profile/whatever Save can often trigger a Save As action.
Most saving is done on files that already exist.