This took me a long time to figure out, but it would appear that an empty field_commerce_sp_validity field causes issues with user photos.

With the field empty, when adding a user photo, the following error is displayed:
The specified file temporary://[filename.extension] could not be copied, because no file by that name exists. Please check that you supplied the correct filename.

Saving the user the first time seems to save the photo fine, but saving the user a second time automatically deletes the photo.

Not sure if this is related to http://drupal.org/node/639918 or http://drupal.org/node/1272830

If the field is populated, there's no problem with the image. If the feature and it's rules are disabled, there's no problem with the image.