I use Blender 2.42a, And I never have had this problem before…
When I try have a mesh, and i want a texture on it, i make the normal thing: Add Tex>>image>>Load image, and then I (ofcourse) select the image I want to use, and hit OK. And the only thing that happens is that blender just return to the controls (Tex>>image>>Load image) where it is blank.
This might be a bug, that need to be fixed.
This is weaird… to check some diffrent images if they could be opened (including the one I had problems with) But now they all work… strange… dunno what was wrong, but is gone now… hmm