A severe error occurred on the current command - select into

Hi

I am making a backup of a table before working on the original, but when I try a simple select into statement I receive 'Msg 0, Level 11, State 0, Line 0 - A Severe error occurred on the current command.  The results, if any, should be discarded.'
I am able to run a select query on the original table with the same where clause I am using in the select into statement and it runs without error.  

Does anyone know why this is happening?
Server 2008 64bit, SQL Server 2008r2

Thank you for any help