diff --git a/src/test/java/org/mastodon/mamut/io/ProjectLoaderTest.java b/src/test/java/org/mastodon/mamut/io/ProjectLoaderTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8ef3800ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/java/org/mastodon/mamut/io/ProjectLoaderTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+package org.mastodon.mamut.io;
+
+import ij.ImagePlus;
+import mpicbg.spim.data.SpimDataException;
+import net.imagej.ImgPlus;
+import net.imagej.axis.Axes;
+import net.imagej.axis.AxisType;
+import net.imglib2.img.Img;
+import net.imglib2.img.array.ArrayImgs;
+import net.imglib2.img.display.imagej.ImgToVirtualStack;
+import net.imglib2.type.numeric.real.FloatType;
+import org.junit.Test;
+import org.mastodon.mamut.ProjectModel;
+import org.mastodon.mamut.io.project.MamutProject;
+import org.mastodon.mamut.model.Model;
+import org.mastodon.views.bdv.SharedBigDataViewerData;
+import org.scijava.Context;
+
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.Objects;
+
+import static org.junit.Assert.assertTrue;
+
+/**
+ * This unit test can be used to test if the ProjectLoader class can properly load and close a project file multiple times without causing memory leaks.
+ */
+public class ProjectLoaderTest
+{
+	@Test
+	public void testLoadAndCloseProjectGarbageCollection() throws IOException, SpimDataException
+	{
+		Model model = new Model();
+		Img< FloatType > image = ArrayImgs.floats( 1, 1, 1 );
+		File mastodonFile = File.createTempFile( "test", ".mastodon" );
+		try (Context context = new Context())
+		{
+			ProjectModel appModel = wrapAsAppModel( image, model, context, mastodonFile );
+			ProjectSaver.saveProject( mastodonFile, appModel );
+		}
+		for ( int i = 0; i < 100; i++ )
+			loadAndCloseProjectModel( mastodonFile );
+		assertTrue( true );
+	}
+
+	private void loadAndCloseProjectModel( final File mastodonFile ) throws SpimDataException, IOException
+	{
+		try (Context context = new Context())
+		{
+			ProjectModel projectModel = ProjectLoader.open( mastodonFile.getAbsolutePath(), context, false, true );
+			projectModel.close();
+		}
+	}
+
+	private static ProjectModel wrapAsAppModel( final Img< FloatType > image, final Model model, final Context context, final File file )
+			throws IOException
+	{
+		final SharedBigDataViewerData sharedBigDataViewerData = asSharedBdvDataXyz( image );
+		MamutProject mamutProject = new MamutProject( file );
+		File datasetXmlFile = File.createTempFile( "test", ".xml" );
+		mamutProject.setDatasetXmlFile( datasetXmlFile );
+		return ProjectModel.create( context, model, sharedBigDataViewerData, mamutProject );
+	}
+
+	private static SharedBigDataViewerData asSharedBdvDataXyz( final Img< FloatType > image1 )
+	{
+		final ImagePlus image =
+				ImgToVirtualStack.wrap( new ImgPlus<>( image1, "image", new AxisType[] { Axes.X, Axes.Y, Axes.Z, Axes.TIME } ) );
+		return Objects.requireNonNull( SharedBigDataViewerData.fromImagePlus( image ) );
+	}
+}