Apparently, a lot of people like Rand’s Objectivism, but didn’t read “Atlas Shrugged.” John Galt didn’t save anyone, and wouldn’t. Billions of people died, and civilization was utterly destroyed, while a few hundred people survived in a village like Syfy’s “Eureka.”
While the ending is certainly dark, I would point out that it was not simply that civilization was destroyed, it destroyed itself because of the values of those in charge and the implicit acceptance of those who put them there.
You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.
Yes he did save people. He set out to save those men of ability who had lived by his code of values but had accepted the code of the looters and accepted their brand of evil and worked with punishment as their reward. It was his mission to save them from that torture which they should never have had to bear. His method of fighting the looters was to allow the world to suffer the consequences of their own moral code. He did try to save them. The whole 3 hour long speech was an attempt to save those who could be saved. He also told the leaders what to do to save the economy but they rejected it. John Galt gave them in his speech the proper code of values to live by but they did not want to live.