I had the problem when I was browsing images. In some cases, when Blender tried to read a specific image, it crashed. Then I figured out which one causes the crash and re-saved it in some bitmap editor. Then it was OK.
Is it, what you get too?
to load with the file view window (instead of the thumbnail view) click the little bar to the right of the [load] image button (looks like a thin button, with no label)
there is one next to the [replace] image button as well with the same function