I started to get this problem when I put in a new soundcard.
The new soundcard is "Asus Xonar DX".
The alsa volumes are restored as they should but pulse volume is set to like 100% but the slider in "ubuntu/unity 12.04" is set to what is was before reboot.
Just changing the slider a little bit sets the correct voume to pulseserver.
I started to get this problem when I put in a new soundcard.
The new soundcard is "Asus Xonar DX".
The alsa volumes are restored as they should but pulse volume is set to like 100% but the slider in "ubuntu/unity 12.04" is set to what is was before reboot.
Just changing the slider a little bit sets the correct voume to pulseserver.
I have also this issue in KDE.