java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class jdk.internal.jimage.ImageNativeSubstrate

Consider this test class:
---
import java.net.URI;
import java.net.URISyntaxException;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class JrtFsTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws URISyntaxException {
        Paths.get(new URI("jrt:/"));
    }

}
---

Compile it, and run it on JDK 8 like:
jdk8/bin/java -classpath <JDK9-image>/jrt-fs.jar:<path-to-test> JrtFsTest

This fails with:
---
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class jdk.internal.jimage.ImageNativeSubstrate
        at jdk.internal.jimage.BasicImageReader.openImageSubstrate(BasicImageReader.java:60)
        at jdk.internal.jimage.BasicImageReader.<init>(BasicImageReader.java:46)
        at jdk.internal.jimage.ImageReader.<init>(ImageReader.java:65)
        at jdk.internal.jimage.ImageReader.open(ImageReader.java:75)
        at jdk.internal.jimage.ImageReader.open(ImageReader.java:82)
        at jdk.internal.jrtfs.JrtFileSystem.openImage(JrtFileSystem.java:93)
        at jdk.internal.jrtfs.JrtFileSystem.<init>(JrtFileSystem.java:108)
        at jdk.internal.jrtfs.JrtFileSystemProvider$1.<init>(JrtFileSystemProvider.java:113)
        at jdk.internal.jrtfs.JrtFileSystemProvider.getTheFileSystem(JrtFileSystemProvider.java:113)
        at jdk.internal.jrtfs.JrtFileSystemProvider.getPath(JrtFileSystemProvider.java:102)
        at java.nio.file.Paths.get(Paths.java:143)
        at JrtFsTest.main(JrtFsTest.java:8)
---

This is with jrt-fs.jar from:
$ java -version
java version "1.9.0-ea"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.9.0-ea-b83)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 1.9.0-ea-b83, mixed mode)

Running on:
$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_40"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_40-b25)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.40-b25, mixed mode)