@mikael I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. GPU is nVidia 650GTX Ti. When the problem started, I decided to upgrade my drivers, but the problem continued.
To make it clear, this isn’t just one instance doing this (ie, restoring the same save game). This happens every time I start a new game (I did it 5 times in a row).
I haven’t had time to test whether different difficulty settings result in the same outcome.
Also, like I mentioned, the issue does not happen after loading my previous save-game.