Latest (4.4.0-53) kernel fails to boot - kernel panic

[compdoc]

> upgraded itself to the 4.4.0-53 kernel, it crashes at startup with a
kernel panic

I had an odd thing happen when I upgraded to this kernel. The system hung
while shutting down to reboot, forcing me to hit the reset button. Then,
after booting all my ZFS arrays were missing. 

So, I rebooted once more and everything worked as normal after that. Very
strange. I have an almost identical system that had no problems with the
upgrade to 4.4.0-53, that I noticed...