Thank you very much for your guidance and response.Yes it's possible. You can set REST_OPTION and REST_N using xmlchange. Then when you need to restart your run you can set
CONTINUE_RUN to true. So, your workflow would be something like this.
Build the model
./xmlchange REST_OPTION=nyear
./xmlchange REST_N=1
This will create restart files at the end of every year.
Then when you run fails you do the following.
./xmlchange CONTINUE_RUN=true
Then submit your run.