Hi Ubisoft,
Kindly put in a simple message on the first screen that comes up when starting the game to alert console players that this character and loading issue is patch related. I feel for those folks who do not follow the forum or your twitter feed who may be stressed and think that their console has the problem and do some unhelpful things like reinstalling the game or rebuilding their console data base which may create a bigger problem for them.
Do the decent thing and let these folk know that this SNAFU is patch related.
Cheers