How to keep test data for certain tables using rspec and database_cleaner in a rails app

Question

I have a few features that require large amounts of data to be loaded into the test db before they're run. I have tagged these specs as "slow". What I'm trying to accomplish is that any feature spec tagged as "slow" will populate the db just once, use it for all specs in that feature and then clean the entire db after that feature is complete.

Here's how I have setup the spec_helper.rb:

RSpec.configure do |config|

  config.before(:suite) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
  end

  config.before(:each, :js => true) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
  end

  config.after(:all, :slow => true) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
    DatabaseCleaner.clean
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.start
  end

  config.after(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean
  end
end

These features are then setup like:

feature "Options page", :slow do
  before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation, { except: %w[ products options models prices ] }
  end
end

This has worked ok for me up until database_cleaner 1.3. Now, a few specs will run ok, but then they all start failing with:

Failure/Error: Unable to find matching line from backtrace
     ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid:
       Mysql2::Error: SAVEPOINT active_record_1 does not exist: ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT active_record_1

Is there a different strategy I should be using here? Does anyone have experience with what I'm trying to accomplish here?