While it's admirable that you want to avoid med school loans, it's probably not the best goal if it means unnecessarily delaying enrollment. Life happens, and delaying your goals could end meaning that you'll get side-tracked by circumstances and never make it to med school. If that would bother you, then delaying isn't a wise option.
Perhaps I'm wrongly inferring from your posts, but I'm guessing that you have little or no undergrad debt. Is that correct?
It sounds like you're a senior in college. Is that correct?
What is your cum GPA and science GPA? Will you have completed all the prereqs by the time you graduate?
If so, then instead of focusing on working for a few years and saving for med school, I would advise you to focus on preparing yourself to be a strong applicant. What shadowing or medically-related ECs are you involved with? As a chemE major, do you have any research experience?
Have you spent any time preparing for the MCAT? I'm guessing "no" because you probably didn't anticipate taking it for awhile.
There's nothing wrong with working/saving during your gap year to help cover the application process and to have some emergency money set aside. But, as others have mentioned, there's a cost to delaying.
