Honestly, the first time I ran into this, I spent hours tracking it down going line by line during the kernel init code (because I thought it was XIP Linux related) until I finally figured it out, and it did make sense why it stops there.....but...I didn't write down the reason and now I can't remember. I just remember saying "Really?!?!? I just spent all that time debugging for that?!?!"
I still do it myself sometimes when I use the same board to do upstream kernel work (4.5, 4.6) and BSP kernel work (3.14) and forget to switch out the DTB.
Chris