Would you mind uploading a copy of the save you're attempting to load?
My best guess so far is a possible conflict. I can't seem to recreate the issue myself with an existing save.
I will continue to look into it on my end later this evening or tomorrow.
what's got me headscratching is I don't think I changed my mods before that error started to show up - it started showing up after the patch from .38 to .40 but rolling back to .38 didn't let it load either