diff --git a/src/ptbench/engine/trainer.py b/src/ptbench/engine/trainer.py
index 38147f843c6ee0c4e93b241f813081f7f6c51d64..fd48d4f1fdd82eea05d28dfff7d035e5694a08fd 100644
--- a/src/ptbench/engine/trainer.py
+++ b/src/ptbench/engine/trainer.py
@@ -92,9 +92,12 @@ def initialize_lowest_validation_loss(logfile_name, arguments):
             # Get the values of the desired column as a list
             values = [float(row[column_name]) for row in reader]
 
+            if not values:
+                return sys.float_info.max
+
         lowest_value = min(values)
         logger.info(
-            f"Found lowest validation error from previous session: {lowest_value}"
+            f"Found lowest validation loss from previous session: {lowest_value}"
         )
         return lowest_value
 
diff --git a/tests/test_cli.py b/tests/test_cli.py
index 31edf50194435d9ba064557c16892ebff467cfd4..aebfb2397241469a2430917c410664a9ec436ca1 100644
--- a/tests/test_cli.py
+++ b/tests/test_cli.py
@@ -288,7 +288,8 @@ def test_train_pasa_montgomery_from_checkpoint(temporary_basedir):
             r"^Continuing from epoch 1$": 1,
             r"^Saving model summary at.*$": 1,
             r"^Model has.*$": 1,
-            r"^Saving checkpoint": 2,
+            r"^Found lowest validation loss from previous session.*$": 1,
+            r"^Saving checkpoint": 1,
             r"^Total training time:": 1,
             r"^Z-normalization with mean": 1,
         }