Its a common misconception that the Entente wanted to dismantle the Austro-Hungarian Empire. None of the Entente proposed, let alone called for, the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914, nor 1915, nor 1916 and it was only after the publishing of Wilson's 14 Points, and its self-determination clause, and Austria-Hungary's fate had become bound up with that of Germany in 1917 that the Entente (or rather the Allies by this time) planned the dismantling of the empire.
There are several reasons for this, firstly that before then the Entente powers only had interest in shaving off territories for themselves from the empire. For instance, Italy was promised the Italian populated territories of Austria-Hungary, Russia wished only for Galicia-Lodomeria and Romania was promised Transylvania. Secondly, Czech and Polish intellectuals who were in exile in Britain and the USA saw WWI as an opportunity to push for independent and devoted considerable effort to trying to persuade the government of the USA and UK to support independence for their nations and it was only later in the war, as opposition to the Habsburgs intensified in the later stages of the war amidst increasing starvation and war-weariness that the UK and USA governments (especially the former) were convinced that the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of independent states from its ruins was a viable possibility. Thirdly, and finally, the internal collapse was only heralded by the war dragging on with little in the way of real results (until Brest-Litovsk at least) and also starvation on the home front, if the war had ended quickly then the home front situation would not have become so disastrous and there would have been no internal collapse.
So to conclude, yes Austria-Hungary could have survived a loss in WWI. If the loss had come quickly, before internal collapse and before the Entente demanded the dissolution of the empire, then it could have survived, albeit in a reduced state (how reduced depends on how quick or otherwise the loss is).