how do .term files work?

[hazmat]

Okay, this is really bothering me. I saved the default Terminal config as default.term. I changed the settings, mostly colors, and saved it as dti.term. Whether I open Terminal, default.term, or dti.term, they all open with the settings in default.term. The only way I can get the dti.term settings is to open a new terminal from withing Terminal.app. What is going on here?

Thanks.