JDK-8144947 showed an error path where we can call Thread::current_or_null before TLS has been initialized and so hit the assertion failure:

00 0261eeac 6d9226d7 jvm!VMError::report_and_die+0x870 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\utilities\vmerror.cpp @ 1304]
01 0261eee0 6d605ae8 jvm!VMError::report_and_die+0x27 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\utilities\vmerror.cpp @ 1083]
02 0261ef00 6d8fb03f jvm!report_vm_error+0x48 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\utilities\debug.cpp @ 218]
03 0261ef14 6d8477de jvm!ThreadLocalStorage::thread+0x1f [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\os\windows\vm\threadlocalstorage_windows.cpp @ 52]
04 (Inline) -------- jvm!Thread::current_or_null_safe+0x5
05 0261f06c 6d724e78 jvm!topLevelExceptionFilter+0x3e [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\os\windows\vm\os_windows.cpp @ 2357]
06 0261f074 6dcb2aa5 jvm!JNI_CreateJavaVM+0x78 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\prims\jni.cpp @ 4107]
07 0261f088 6dcb2b33 msvcr120!_EH4_CallFilterFunc+0x12 [f:\dd\vctools\crt\crtw32\misc\i386\exsup4.asm @ 391]
08 0261f0b4 6d947682 msvcr120!_except_handler4_common+0x8e [f:\dd\vctools\crt\crtw32\misc\i386\chandler4.c @ 360]
09 0261f0d4 76fd00b1 jvm!_except_handler4+0x1e [f:\dd\vctools\crt\crtw32\misc\i386\chandler4gs.c @ 91]
0a 0261f0f8 76fd0083 ntdll!ExecuteHandler2+0x26
0b 0261f1c4 76fd07ff ntdll!ExecuteHandler+0x24
0c 0261f1c4 6d698956 ntdll!KiUserExceptionDispatcher+0xf
0d (Inline) -------- jvm!GuardedMemory::Guard::verify+0x9
0e 0261f520 6d83dff8 jvm!GuardedMemory::print_on+0x86 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\memory\guardedmemory.cpp @ 67]
0f 0261f534 6d83b1bb jvm!verify_memory+0xb8 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\runtime\os.cpp @ 529]
10 0261f574 6d48bb5b jvm!os::free+0x7b [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\runtime\os.cpp @ 692]
11 0261f584 6d48eb49 jvm!ScopedVMInitArgs::~ScopedVMInitArgs+0x2b [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\runtime\arguments.cpp @ 3551]
12 0261f5dc 6d8f2f24 jvm!Arguments::parse+0x279 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\runtime\arguments.cpp @ 4125]
13 0261f6b0 6d722a6f jvm!Threads::create_vm+0x94 [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\runtime\thread.cpp @ 3418]
14 0261f714 6d724e4f jvm!JNI_CreateJavaVM_inner+0x6f [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\prims\jni.cpp @ 4016]
15 0261f754 00282551 jvm!JNI_CreateJavaVM+0x4f [c:\jprt\t\p1\232608.cphillim\s\hotspot\src\share\vm\prims\jni.cpp @ 4105]

Need to see if this can be avoided.