Loading WP not working in 3.6.1

Hi,

I had the code below in some of my theme files. Since upgrading to 3.6.1 the pages that have this code in the file, crash when they reach this code. Has something that would affect this code changed in 3.6.1?

<?php
    $path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
    define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);
    //code executes until this point
    require($path .'/wp-load.php');
?>

I tried changing the path to use double quotes:
require($path ."/wp-load.php");

I tried removing the space after path, even though it worked before:
require($path."/wp-load.php");

I added a closing php at the very end of the wp-load.php file:
?>

I’d appreciate any help finding the problem.
Thanks