gazebo::physics::get_world crashes node

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ROS Indigo on Ubuntu 14.04 with Gazebo 7

I am trying to access the models in a Gazebo world via a node. In order to do this, I am just trying to get a reference to the world. Using the get_world function in the gazebo::physics namespace causes the node process to die. I try to catch the offending error below, but information from the error is not printed. The node just dies. The usage of this function in the docs seems straightforward. Why does this crash?

// ROS
#include <ros/ros.h>
#include <ros/package.h>
#include <std_msgs/Header.h>
#include <std_msgs/String.h>
#include <std_msgs/Char.h>
// Gazebo
#include <boost/bind.hpp>
#include <gazebo/gazebo.hh>
#include <gazebo/physics/physics.hh>
#include <gazebo/common/common.hh>
#include <stdio.h>
//#include "gazebo/GetWorldProperties.h" // DO I NEED THIS? , Error if included 

int main(int argc, char** argv){ // Accept args from the console

    ros::init(argc, argv, "attacher_node"); 

    ros::NodeHandle nh("attacher_handle"); // Start the node and give it a name

    ros::Publisher rNotifyPub = nh.advertise<std_msgs::String>( "/regrasp/notify" , 100 ); 

    std_msgs::String outMsg;

    try {
        // Get a reference to the world  
        gazebo::physics::WorldPtr worldRef = gazebo::physics::get_world("default"); 
    } catch (const std::exception& e) { // The error is never caught, process dies
        outMsg.data = e.what(); 
        rNotifyPub.publish(outMsg);
    }

    return 0; // Return OK
}

The following error information is printed when I run the launch file that calls the node:

[attacher_node-10] process has died [pid 28515, exit code -6, cmd /home/jwatson/regrasp_planning/devel/lib/grasp_anything/attacher_node __name:=attacher_node __log:=/home/jwatson/.ros/log/0e0eaf34-64e5-11e6-8d9b-0022191c2335/attacher_node-10.log].
log file: /home/jwatson/.ros/log/0e0eaf34-64e5-11e6-8d9b-0022191c2335/attacher_node-10*.log

The log file mentioned in the error message does not exist.

I also tried to move the initialization of this node to another launch file that I started after Gazebo had finished loading. This was to prevent the case in which Gazebo perhaps hadn't fully started when ROS was trying to start the above node. Starting the node separately did not resolve the issue.