Corebridge Financial found that one in five (21%) Gen Xers expect to work until 70 or later before retiring.

While working longer means you have more time to save for retirement by contributing to 401(k)s and IRAs, there's also concern about an imminent market crash. Consider the dotcom bubble burst of 2000, when Amazon shares lost more than 90% of their value and took almost a decade to fully recover.

What goes down usually comes back up — like it did with Amazon — but Gen Xers closing in on retirement may be squeezed for time.

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How to protect your retirement

Many Americans are heavily weighted in S&P 500 mutual funds and ETFs. And, right now, they're enjoying record gains.

But it's also making some investors wary of a crash — especially since the top 20 stocks command half (50.8%) of the index's total market capitalization, according to J.P. Morgan .

The firm's strategists warn that "this creates a systemic risk factor where a single earnings miss or a shift in AI sentiment among the 'Top 20' could trigger a de-leveraging event capable of pulling down the entire market, regardless of the health of the remaining 480 companies."

A Gen Xer with a portfolio heavily weighted toward AI companies could be more vulnerable to a market drop if they're planning to retire in the next few years.

"History shows that markets recover, but retirees don't get to choose whether that recovery takes one year or several," Ernie Cave, founder of Cave Wealth Management, told CNBC.

This is what's referred to as the sequence-of-returns risk, where poor returns in early retirement limit the portfolio's ability to recover — essentially locking in those losses.

Cave advises investors to avoid approaching retirement with a majority of their assets in an S&P 500 fund "simply because it has performed well over the last decade," he told CNBC. Instead, he recommends a "war chest" with diversified investments.

This includes two years of withdrawals covered by cash or short-term investments and five years of withdrawals covered by cash, treasuries, CDs and high-quality bonds, while leaving the rest invested for growth.

Another approach is the glide path, where you gradually shift your portfolio from high-risk investments (like stocks) to lower-risk investments (like bonds). This can be used as you approach retirement, but also as you move through the different phases of your retirement years.

Some investors may want to consider the bond tent approach. This means you temporarily increase your bond holdings just before and just after you retire (like the shape of a tent). Should there be a market downturn, that's when your portfolio would be at the highest risk. Afterward, you could then shift back to growth-focused assets.

While Gen X faces a number of retirement challenges ahead, reality might not bite quite so badly with some smart investment strategies to protect their retirement savings.

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Baby boomers get all the attention — but Gen X 'faces an even greater retirement crisis.' How to prep your 'war chest'

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.