The sliding mode control (SMC) strategy is applied to a permanent magnet synchronous machine vector control system in this study to improve system robustness amid parameter changes and disturbances. In view of the intrinsic chattering of SMC, a current sliding mode control method with a load sliding mode observer is proposed. In this method, a current sliding mode control law based on variable exponent reaching law is deduced to overcome the disadvantage of the regular exponent reaching law being incapable of approaching the origin. A load torque-sliding mode observer with an adaptive switching gain is introduced to observe load disturbance and increase the minimum switching gain with the increase in the range of load disturbance, which intensifies system chattering. The load disturbance observed value is then applied to the output side of the current sliding mode controller as feed-forward compensation. Simulation and experimental results show that the designed method enhances system robustness amid load disturbance and effectively alleviates system chattering.