Just an additional comment, running qemu-kvm with a 3part image (kernel, initramfs and disk) does not yield a crash on 4.8 kernel, even when enabling vhost. Similarly, running a guest with AAVMF and no vhost behaves ok, it's the combination of the two that didn't work no matter what guest, FW or AAVMF binaries we tried.
Just an additional comment, running qemu-kvm with a 3part image (kernel, initramfs and disk) does not yield a crash on 4.8 kernel, even when enabling vhost. Similarly, running a guest with AAVMF and no vhost behaves ok, it's the combination of the two that didn't work no matter what guest, FW or AAVMF binaries we tried.