An less hideous workaround if you are the only user of the system is to use openoffice's dialog for open/save (in the "general" section of the options). Anyway I am happy to learn that a rebuild is sufficient to get back gnome's save dialog!
** Bug 59733 has been marked a duplicate of this bug -- Openoffice.org crashes on "Save" https://launchpad.net/bugs/58492 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs