Okay, I can confirm that this is caused by my extra VIEW that I'm using. I commented out all references to it in my code and now the levels load fine and work normally.

This is strange because I have another additional VIEW object (in my spaceship) which works fine when loading and reloading the game. It is only when landing on a planet when the third VIEW object will come into play, so only two VIEWS will be used at the same time - the main camera and the additional view screen in the spaceship, or top down map on planets.

So there is some combination of views perhaps that prevents the main camera from updating properly. The additional strange bit is that it works fine during the first play session. Only after leaving the game and coming back will the camera view be disrupted upon reloading an existing level, and also when loading a new planet level.

The good news is that I know the approximate cause of the problem - my new VIEW object. The bad news is that I can't use this object in the game until I figure this out ...