I know Scala has been targeted to the Java platform. As far as I know Scala also fits to .Net / C# intermediate code thing. IMHO Java and .Net platforms are relatively similar, this is no surprise.
Java and .Net platforms deliver services or some kind of infrastructure which may be missing in system and kernel development.
Yes there is have a look at scala LLVM: http://greedy.github.com/scala-llvm/ It is under development. Some issues like garbage collection remain.
For more details and insights have a look at one of the relevant mailing list discussions: http://groups.google.com/group/scala-debate/browse_thread/thread/4ce486843cf7ef33/01ac59db9d8c5137?lnk=gst&q=LLVM+#01ac59db9d8c5137
You may also take a look at the rust programming language