I had that happen as well, but I don't believe it is a bug, rather it is working as intended. I could be wrong though, as I never tried replaying Op Liberty and going for the capture point victory...

I managed to get past San Fran and played till Los Angeles before I needed to reload, but now I can't load any saves after a certain point in my San Fran playthrough.

I think you might be right about a Japanese Infantry unit being the issue. I can load all my saves from before I complete the elite objective just fine, and I can keep playing past that point as long as I do not ever load a save. I made it all the way to Los Angeles before I needed to reload, and no...

I'm having this same issue with loading any of my saves from AO: 46. I finished San Francisco, started the next mission, saved, and then went back to try and load my last save in San Francisco to explore the other option for the next mission. Game crashed and now I get that same message any time I t...