diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 5e04807fbc..94f52f7a3f 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -120,6 +120,8 @@
 
 15. `rbind` and `rbindlist` of zero-row items now retain (again) the unused levels of any (zero-length) factor columns, [#3508](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/3508). This was a regression in v1.12.2 just for zero-row items. Unused factor levels were already retained for items having `nrow>=1`. Thanks to Gregory Demin for reporting.
 
+16. `rbind` and `rbindlist` of an item containing an ordered factor with levels containing an `NA` (as opposed to an NA integer) could segfault, [#3601](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/issues/3601). This was a a regression in v1.12.2. Thanks to Damian Betebenner for reporting.
+
 #### NOTES
 
 1. `rbindlist`'s `use.names="check"` now emits its message for automatic column names (`"V[0-9]+"`) too, [#3484](https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/pull/3484). See news item 5 of v1.12.2 below.
diff --git a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
index 97c0de9751..d5e98d0c87 100644
--- a/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
+++ b/inst/tests/tests.Rraw
@@ -14922,6 +14922,16 @@ test(2051.5, as.POSIXct(t, structure(0L, class="Date")), .POSIXct(0, 'UTC'))
 DT = data.table(a = 1:3)
 test(2051.6, DT[order(sin(a/pi))], DT)
 
+# rbindlist ordered factor with an NA level, #3601
+dt1 = structure(list(V1 = c("2016", "2016", "2016", "2016", "2016"),
+    V46 = structure(c(3L, 1L, 1L, NA, 3L), .Label = c("Low",
+    "Typical", "High", NA), class = c("ordered", "factor"))), class = c("data.table", "data.frame"), row.names = c(NA, -5L))
+dt2 = structure(list(V1 = c("2018", "2018", "2018", "2018", "2018")), row.names = c(NA, -5L), class = c("data.table", "data.frame"))
+test(2052, rbindlist(list(dt1, dt2), fill=TRUE),
+           data.table(V1=c(dt1$V1, dt2$V1),
+                      V46=structure(c(3L,1L,1L,NA,3L,NA,NA,NA,NA,NA), .Label=c("Low","Typical","High",NA), class = c("ordered", "factor"))))
+
+
 ###################################
 #  Add new tests above this line  #
 ###################################
diff --git a/src/rbindlist.c b/src/rbindlist.c
index 1a0cffae31..dae2630917 100644
--- a/src/rbindlist.c
+++ b/src/rbindlist.c
@@ -351,7 +351,6 @@ SEXP rbindlist(SEXP l, SEXP usenamesArg, SEXP fillArg, SEXP idcolArg)
         if (!levelsRaw) { savetl_end(); error("Failed to allocate working memory for %d ordered factor levels of result column %d", nLevel, idcol+j+1); }
         for (int k=0; k<longestLen; ++k) {
           SEXP s = sd[k];
-          if (s==NA_STRING) continue;
           if (TRUELENGTH(s)>0) savetl(s);
           levelsRaw[k] = s;
           SET_TRUELENGTH(s,-k-1);