I came from using DOOM emacs and I left it behind for this very reason. One incorrect line in your config and nothing loads.
I have since started using the "crafted-emacs" methodology developed by member of the System Crafters community.
Found here - https://github.com/SystemCrafters/crafted-emacs/tree/craftedv2RC1
I have developed my own "nodules that I load from my init.el file.
So far it's working great. All I did was take the sections from my old configuration file and break them out in to individual .el files to load.