Been playing this game for 50 hours at least and I have never come across anything like this yet. Was on the road near helgen, between the snow and the grassy areas on the map, near a the junctions where you see the signs. A StormCloak Courier shows up sprinting and speaks, telling me to join etc etc. Well, I run with him to see where he goes, but at the next turn, 3 storm cloak soldiers draw arms and attack me, killing me. So I reckon this strange when their courier was just nice to me. Reloads the save, same thing, only at the turn there are 2 soldiers and a warrior looking guy who charges me, but I get whacked by a massive blue wind and blow to death almost 20 meters back down the road. Did this enemy just SHOUT me? Reloads, the next time there are companions fighting a bear and sabre cat. I wasn't killed that time, but I reloaded to see what was next. A troll fighting 2 sprigans. What on Earth is causing this to happen at this area? Very very random. I'm also very interested to know who the guy was who shouted me to death in one blow. So random, yet so interesting, because I have not come across enemies for awhile.

I still haven't seen a spriggan and I think i'm almost done with the main quest...

There was 2 of them laying waste to a troll. Creepy things they are. Can't believe how random this are is proving to be right now. Certainly can't believe the Stormcloaks showing up after their guy offered me a chance to join. I wonder if I'd have obtained something had I killed the guy.

They are nasty. I've died to 5 of them. but i was rather low level. I've only killed one so far.

That's an example of the Radiant AI/ storytelling at work. The game is always constantly generating new and random stuff for you to do rather than have a world full of set scripted events. That's why you can potentially experience different things in the same area that weren't happening in a previous re-load.

Seems to be a trigger for a random event to happen.

I've killed several of them, they hit hard, very hard, though they've not got as high HP as trolls, so they're not too hard to kill.

It's a random event, I'm guessing it's like FO3 where there is a certain list of scripted events at certain points on the map, and it cycles through them.

It's a random event. Same mechanic as in FO3 - you get to a certain area and any particular random event has a % chance of occurring at that place. My most frequently encountered one so far is Imperial soldiers with a Stormcloak prisoner.

One of the things that most surprises from this happening is that beforehand I would travel everywhere I've been previously and nothing had repopulated. The World was empty, with dead bodies even from the beginning of the game remaining. I was concerned, but this has refreshed my thoughts and I am most pleased, I just wish it happened a bit more often.

I don't think the monster shouted you to death. It prolly just did a unrelenting force shout and you flew/crumpled on the floor. Happened to me with Draugr Deathlords, takes me forever to get up (i reloaded twice coz i thought I died) and when I do my life bar is still almost full

Once there was this NPC called Anise living alone in a house; i snuck in and stole virtually everything of value (which wasnt really much anyway)

And a few days later i had 3 hired thugs looking for me, and apparently one of the thugs had a letter which said that Anise had hired them to apprehend me at that point i was like WOW Cool [censored] dude

This spell/shout killed me in a single blow. lol. I was dead because it did an auto reload.

I had a very similar experience
got killed by an assasin
reloaded went exactly the same way only this time there was a random kahjit bandit demanding money
reloaded again and there was something else entirely

kind of a shame cuz I wanted to exact my revenge upon the assasin
did meet the same assasin at a completely different location later on in the game though

For me it was 2 of Stendarr's prilgrims fighting an ancient vampire. Unfortunately they lost.