This appears to be a common problem that has plagued libreoffice for years. The only solution I see is to save frequently as a PDF. Not cutting and pasting images, but rather linking into libreoffice with the image saved in same directory seems to work, mostly. Any other ideas?
TDF has recently published the results of tender dedicated to improvement in image handling. Its goals included more robust handling, avoiding loosing them. The results will be possible to see in the next version. Hopefully, they will be an improvement.