That's a very interesting question.
My first thought is... is 'losing' the game really necessary? You've set a challenge, the player must work their way through the obstacles to complete the challenge... losing is just an occasional forced reset. Other than extending game play time, I don't really see the value.
Of course, the intention behind losing is consequence, and defeating the consequence brings dopamine.
Perhaps instead of a hard time limit to force a restart, there is a soft time limit for certain goals? You still 'win' the round if you achieve the basic goal, but there are timed advanced goals that give you a rating out of stars or something?