We had the same issue, working from JS code (i.e. not from HTML anchor). This is how we solved that:
If needed, virtually alter current URL through $location service. This might be useful if your destination is just a variation on the current URL, so that you can take advantage of $location helper methods. E.g. we ran $location.search(..., ...) to just change value of a querystring paramater.
Build up the new destination URL, using current $location.url() if needed. In order to work, this new one had to include everything after schema, domain and port. So e.g. if you want to move to:
http://yourdomain.com/YourAppFolder/YourAngularApp/#/YourArea/YourAction?culture=en
then you should set URL as in:
var destinationUrl = '/YourAppFolder/YourAngularApp/#/YourArea/YourAction?culture=en';
(with the leading '/' as well).
Assign new destination URL at low-level: $window.location.href = destinationUrl;
Force reload, still at low-level: $window.location.reload();