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Since any belief system -- whether you accept it as the one and true one, or not -- depends on actual _belief,_ then no, Jesus couldn't have saved anyone if no one knew of his sacrifice. Because they wouldn't believe it, and wouldn't change their behavior accordingly.
Some people believe that Jesus died "for our sins," but you also here in liturgy and scripture that Jesus was "the perfect sacrifice," and that means something else. In old Jewish society, only priests and others who were ritually kept "clean" could make sacrifices to God and thus communicate with him/her/it meaningfully. God was separate from ordinary men. Jesus, in being considered the perfect sacrifice, was the _last_ sacrifice ever to be required; God and man now were together (the Holy Spirit), instead of relying on priests as intermediaries (and believe me, the priests in those days milked that role for all the power and privilege they could.)
I'm warping the argument a little, because I don't remember it perfectly, though that's the gist. But basically, if you didn't know that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, you wouldn't know that you could be close to God on your own; and you wouldn't be.
This all said as an agnostic, of course, but a good church-attending one.
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