This hasn't worked. The first time it happened for me, I loaded a save from a previous area. It fixed it the first time, but now nothing seems to fix it. All of the save files have this same bug, and sometimes even the party members will be just white boxes.. As I said on the post that was started yesterday( http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71874-companion-is-gone-when-i-load-a-saved-game/ ) it seems to be happening with the bear animal companion only. It's also not just when you load a game save or when you die. Hope that helps.