Yea I have definatly loaded the passengers. I have 6 of them all packed in a rocket. (one of those big missions with quite a few people)
Only person I forgot was a scientist, which I swapped out in lunar rendezvous. (it defaulted to pilot, and thats no good for my lander... And I didn't notice till I was half way to the moon.)
But it might be because it wasn't focused on. I had a flotilla of 4 ships headed towards the moon at the time, so I am bouncing around quite a bit to control all of them.