QGIS' georeferencer layer doesn't appear?

Look for Settings -> Options, CRS Tab

under CRS for new Layer, you should activate Ask for CRS. and choose your custom CRS.

Standard is EPSG:4326, and the coordinates of your tif are most probably outside the allowed bounds of +-180°/90° of lon/lat coordinates.

I had the same problem and found that following the instructions at OpenLayers Plugin Error: latitude or longitude exceeded limits worked. They are:

• set the project CRS to EPSG:3857
• make sure on-the-fly-projection is enabled
• add the background openlayers map layer you want load other stuff that might have other layer CRS, like WGS84 in lat/lon degrees
• save the project

After this georeferencing the image map with CRS EPSG:3857 worked. I wish I knew why.