Try selecting the bridge and in the rollup bar go down to a button
that says 'reload script.' Click on that, and the changes you made to
the surface type should be saved when you next ctrl + G to get in
game.
There is also a work around that may be useful if you need to change
the surface type of lots of materials or need to reload the script of
lots of entities. It involves overwritting the texture that currently
shows up to tell you there are no surface properties. If you create
a .dds file in photoshop, call it "default_mat_warning.dds", make it 4
x 4 pixels, and make its alpha channel black.
Save it in the following file path:
YOURFREESDK > Game > Textures
it should now overwrite the warning texture with an invisible texture.
This workaround does require a photoshop plugin that has been
mentioned in previous posts, but if you are unsure how to set that up
I'd suggest trying the reload script button and sticking to that if it
works.