S;G Ep 1 Question (A;C spoilers)

S;G and A;C In the first episode of the Steins;Gate anime, after sending the text that someone stabbed Makise Kurisu, Okabe is suddenly alone and everyone else disappears. After a moment everyone reappears like nothing happened. Is this Okabe entering the load free region? Would it be because he jumped from the Alpha world line to the Beta world line, and as he is the first one to observe it, the computer needs a minute to load and "boot up" all the regions of Beta?