I'm not sure if this issue was fixed or not, but I had a similar issue with Character Slot 2 (far left, second down) being deleted. Cause of my was Game Crash due to Alt+Tab. Error was a Video/Graphics crash. Recommend to use full windowed mode, and update drivers. Drivers were update but it still crashed. Also, any characters made in Slot 2 in place of a deleted character, put a new Default Character regardless if you made one. It also carries over the quest progression from the previously deleted character, but you're lvl 1, Default, no stats. I hope this helps.