This is caused by rB3b6ee8cee708: Refactor: Move vertex group names to object data.
Since rigging curves with armatures only works with envelopes (if I am
not mistaken), this stirs up the question again why we actually give the
choice for vertex groups in parenting.
Anyways, curves can have armature modifiers and renaming bones should not
crash.
Now remove the vertex group support assert in
BKE_object_defgroup_list, return NULL instead (and check for this in
BKE_object_defgroup_find_name).