The only good solution is to leave the program running. Playing for a minimum of 5 turns helps, but of course doesn't cure the problem. You will see funky things happen like Germania with 8 provinces will become a Protectorate of the Julii because another feature of this bug is that factions will automatically accept requests to become Protectorates after a load, and there is no way you can stop the AI from making those requests. Nice, huh?