No, as far as I know, there really is no animation for phone talking.
I searched for it too, but no success.
The situation of saving automatically and being shot right after it, really can be a problem. Therefore I also prefer to hand over the responsibility to the player giving him free saves. At the same time however I try to look for situations where it is sure that the player is not in danger, and then I use the savegame command.
But if I remember correctly, you did automatically save the game between getting to the crossroad and the Takiban counter attack - or not?