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It depends

on the amplifier design. My Marantz 8B has a warning to not run with no load. In fact I tried using the 16 ohm tap a couple times with a speaker attached and the output tubes started to run away (not enough feedback?). I caught that quickly. The Marantz in ultra linear pentode operation is essentially a Williamson circuit and has a feedback winding on the output transformer - no feedback (i.e. no load) means the amp can go full on even with a very low noise signal on the input (that is the definition of unstable). Obviously, this does not apply to non feedback tube amps (most).

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