“Format compilation” in TeX also appears to be inspired by a similar snapshotting mechanism built into TOPS-20[1].
Generally, I’d say that dumping VM state (if not in the host executable format) is a perfectly ordinary thing for an isolated VM to do. It’s the default way Smalltalk systems operate, for example, being very close ideologically to Lisp machines in that they try to be an OS centered around a programming language more than a programming language implemented inside an OS.
(I should really look into that Oberon thing one of those days...)
... Aa-and I’m being stupid, because there were of course also “persistent” OSes like KeyKOS[1], where a memory image (swapped in, modified, and swapped out as necessary) is essentially the only way for a program to exist. (Good news: capability access control is easy to program to and has entirely intuitive dynamic behaviour. Bad news: noöne has worked out how to bootstrap this dynamic behaviour from a static set of rules in a reasonably modular way, to the point that making a system which can hibernate but never shut down actually starts to look like a reasonable solution.)
(Not sure if that's the best link, but it is easily Googleable.)