Error: One or more categories of approval could not be loaded when user wants to approve

Two of my PM's are getting the error shown in the title of this post  (Error: One or more categories of approval could not be loaded when user wants to approve).    The "Related Topic" issues a work around of using the rules to "automatically approve the offending items".   This did not work for us.   Has anyone else experienced this issue? 

Thanks,

~RK