This is bad. I was trying to spectate my hardcore world after dying, but got stuck in unloaded chunks at my respawn point. Due to this gamerule being set to false when you die in hardcore, I thought to exit out of the world, turn on cheats, and force the chunks around me to load. Because I couldn't load any chunks, my hardcore world cannot load, thus freezing the game at the "loading terrain" screen, which softlocks the game.
How to reproduce
Die in hardcore. Make sure your death point and spawnpoint are far away from each other.
If you get trapped in unloaded chunks, relog from the world. If not, open the world to LAN amd try again.
Try to open the world.
Sit in your chair for the rest of forever waiting for your world to load.
Core issue is MC-157812, fixing that will fix this.