There are a number of places in RDA where we assume the block will not be empty. This isn't necessarily true for tail predicated loops where we have removed instructions. This attempt to make the pass more resilient to empty blocks, not casting pointers to machine instructions where they would be invalid.
The test contains a case that was previously failing, but recently been hidden on trunk. It contains an empty block to begin with to show a similar error.
Nit: this is a very big test for checking an empty block. If possible, can you reduce this before committing.