EhCache + Hibernate Cache is not alive

After configuring EhCache v2.4.5 as the second level cache for hibernate v3.6.7 I get the following error while trying to load all objects of a particular entity using hibernate session. (There is no error for loading the objects for the first time)

java.lang.IllegalStateException: The country Cache is not alive.
at net.sf.ehcache.Cache.checkStatus(Cache.java:2438)
at net.sf.ehcache.Cache.get(Cache.java:1541)
at net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.regions.EhcacheTransactionalDataRegion.get(EhcacheTransactionalDataRegion.java:105)
at net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.strategy.AbstractReadWriteEhcacheAccessStrategy.putFromLoad(AbstractReadWriteEhcacheAccessStrategy.java:90)
at net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.nonstop.NonstopAwareEntityRegionAccessStrategy.putFromLoad(NonstopAwareEntityRegionAccessStrategy.java:180)
at org.hibernate.engine.TwoPhaseLoad.initializeEntity(TwoPhaseLoad.java:195)
at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.initializeEntitiesAndCollections(Loader.java:982)
at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQuery(Loader.java:857)
at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQueryAndInitializeNonLazyCollections(Loader.java:274)
at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doList(Loader.java:2533)
at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.listIgnoreQueryCache(Loader.java:2276)
at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.list(Loader.java:2271)
at org.hibernate.loader.criteria.CriteriaLoader.list(CriteriaLoader.java:119)
at org.hibernate.impl.SessionImpl.list(SessionImpl.java:1716)
at org.hibernate.impl.CriteriaImpl.list(CriteriaImpl.java:347)
at dataAccess.CountryDAO.loadAll(CountryDAO.java:80)

My hibernate configuration is:

<property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">
        net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.SingletonEhCacheRegionFactory
</property>
<property name="hibernate.cache.provider_configuration">
    /ehcache.xml
</property>
<property name="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache">
    true
</property>
<property name="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache"&