Saudi Arabia has prevented an offensive by fighters allied to the Houthis on Jizan province bordering Yemen, according to state media.
Dozens of armed men, believed to belong to Republican Guard units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, died in Friday's failed assault, which the Saudi security sources said was the biggest since the conflict in neighbouring Yemen began.
The Saudi armed forces said one of their officer had died of injuries sustained during the attack.
A spokesperson for the Saudi National Guards said Captain Nasser bin Khaled al-Atawi died in Najran, without mentioning the cause.
The incident is believed to have started when Houthi forces and units of soldiers loyal to Saleh tried to infiltrate the border at Al Khouba.
The fighters launched a number of rockets at Saudi military positions, before the Saudi army retaliated with artillery shelling and air support from Apache helicopter gunships.
Houthi reinforcements on the Yemeni side of the border were also targeted during the retaliation.
The rebel-alligned Al Masirah TV aired video purporting to show fighters moving towards Saudi watchtowers and firing rockets.
Friday's developments came a day after the Iran-allied Houthis agreed to join UN-backed peace talks in Geneva planned for June 14.
A coalition of Arab states has been bombing Houthi forces for more than two months in an attempt to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Saudi Arabia.
About 2,000 people have been killed and half a million displaced by the fighting.
Coalition bombings killed about 58 people across Yemen on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the Houthi-controlled state news agency Saba.
Among them, 48 people, most of them women and children, were reportedly killed in air strikes on their houses in the Houthi heartland in the rural far north adjoining Saudi Arabia.
The reports could not be independently verified.