Disappearing Legend: Saving a figure with a legend as a .fig file

I am trying to save a figure with a legend positioned manually outside of the plot as a .fig file. When I generate the figure the legend is positioned exactly as I want it. I then save the file using the figure GUI, but when I reopen the saved figure the legend has "disappeared".

I'm fairly certain that this has something to do with the parent/child relationship between figures, axes and legends, but I'm a beginner in understanding the structure of the these objects in Matlab.

I am including a minimal example of what I am trying to do. I am generating the figure and legend in a loop because this is a necessary part of my "real" code. Any help or insight in where to look for an answer to this coding question would be appreciated.

 %Problem Code 
 clear all;
  fig1 = figure; 
  set(fig1,'units','centimeters','Position',[0 0 28 15]); 
  h_axes_1=axes('parent',fig1,'units','centimeters','Position',[3 3 13 9]);
  hold on
  for i = 1:1:5
  plot(h_axes_1,[1:10],2*i*[1:10]);
  Legendinfo{i} = ['i =' num2str(i)];
  end
  leg1 = legend(Legendinfo,'Units','centimeters','parent',fig1,'Position',[17 6 6 6]);
  hold off

If I change the line of code that constructs the legend to

legend(Legendinfo,'Units','centimeters','parent',fig1,'Location','northeastoutside');

opening the saved file produces the same figure as the original file. That is, the issue of the disappearing legend is resolved.

While this is a "work around" I would much prefer being able to specify the exact location and size of my legend.

I am using release 2015b. This problem occurs whether I select the drop down "save" option from the file menu in the figure window or I use the "savefig" command in the command window.

Thanks.

[Walter Roberson]

Which MATLAB release are you using?

And please show your command to save the plot.

[Laura]

I am using the 2015b release. Currently I am just using the save option from the drop down file menu in the automatically generated matlab figure window.