As was pointed out above, white oak does accumulate minerals under the right conditions, often a lot of it in the bark. I have used white oak in furniture and if one cuts too fast, it will easily gum/smoke, especially if the wood isn't fed straight or the blade is the tiniest bit dull.
I guess I am not convinced that there was anything wrong in the cutting, especially if the chips looked ok. The minerals in the bark alone could easily have friction heated the chain and have accounted for the sparks. That said, I might have double checked the chain for evidence of adequate oiling. I have had chains smoke on old, dry cherry, and that did cause me to disassemble everything to double check the oiling passages, but nope, just another hard, hard wood.
I dealt with a lot of white oak and some black locust as a kid, and if it is dry, white oak is hard, hard, hard. I would take black locust over white oak any day for cutting. But for both of them, I certainly would process the wood ASAP after felling. A couple of the old farm buildings were made with white oak, and you either pre-drilled a nail hole, or pounded in three nails part way and removed three bent nails to make a hole deep enough for the fourth. But I think that different woods are always interesting; we had a bunch of Dutch elm then for firewood; easy to cut, but miserable to split with all sorts of branched fibers.
All the best,
Peter