boost::python::numpy causing python crash when numpy not installed

The following code causes python to exit (crash?) upon import when numpy is not installed. It looks like a ModuleNotFoundError does get thrown but it's not catchable and python simply exits. It's hard to tell if this is exit() being called or an actual crash. I would expect a catchable ModuleNotFoundError or ImportError to be thrown and python not to exit.

#define BOOST_PYTHON_STATIC_LIB
#define BOOST_NUMPY_STATIC_LIB
#include

#include
#include
#include

namespace py = boost::python;
namespace np = boost::python::numpy;

template
np::ndarray to_numpy(const std::vector &vec)
{
Py_intptr_t shape[1] = { static_cast(vec.size()) };
np::ndarray result = np::zeros(1, shape, np::dtype::get_builtin());
std::copy(vec.begin(), vec.end(), reinterpret_cast(result.get_data()));
return result;
}

BOOST_PYTHON_MODULE(HelloBoostPython)
{
np::initialize();

py::class_>("DoubleVector")
.def(py::init())
.def(py::init())
.def(py::vector_indexing_suite>())
.def("to_numpy", to_numpy)
;
}

prompt:

(base) C:\Development\HelloBoostPython\Debug>python
Python 3.7.4 (default, Aug 9 2019, 18:22:51) [MSC v.1915 32 bit (Intel)] :: Anaconda, Inc. on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import HelloBoostPython
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'numpy'
ImportError: numpy.core._multiarray_umath failed to import

(base) C:\Development\HelloBoostPython\Debug>

If it matters, this is with boost 1.70 using visual studio 2017 to build.