I had exactly the same problem
HTMLeditor removes the closing tag of the iframe before preview and I think iframe's don't work without closing tags and caused the display problem

edit: editors/htmlarea/htmlarea.js

find

PHP Code:
HTMLArea.needsClosingTag = function(el) {
var 
closingTags " head script style div span tr td tbody table em strong font a title ";
return (
closingTags.indexOf(" " el.tagName.toLowerCase() + " ") != -1);
}; 
(line 3893)

add iframe
e.g.:
PHP Code:
HTMLArea.needsClosingTag = function(el) {
var 
closingTags " iframe head script style div span tr td tbody table em strong font a title ";
return (
closingTags.indexOf(" " el.tagName.toLowerCase() + " ") != -1);
};