Same error here (with creating an NPC). However, if I check the option "Allow PCs to add Bonus HD" when creating the portfolio it works fine with NPCs.
My question is way this "feature" was added... this really seems to be a case of if it wasn't broken -- why "fix" it. Unless there was some behind the scene programming reason, this seems like a very counter-intuitive way to do this. Likely to be frustrating to people that don't see(recognize) the check box in the options and everyone else is like to just check it and leave it that way permanently.