Think of it this way. The engine is an air pump. On a reed valve 2 stroke fresh air is drawn through the carb because of the vacuum created by the rising piston. On the way through the carb it mixes with fuel. How much depends on a number of things, but in a perfect world the ratio would be about 15
parts of air to 1 part of fuel.
The vacuum that happens on a reed valve engine can only occur when the reeds are closed and the transfer ports are below the piston rings as it moves towards the top of its stroke. During this very short period negative pressure builds to the point that the reeds are literally sucked open allowing the air and fuel to rush into the crankcase.
What happens when a crankcase seal is damaged is that raw air (void of fuel) is sucked in during the moment that negative crankcase pressure occurs. Depending on how bad the leak is the ratio of air to fuel can rise greatly. This cases a lean condition which in turn causes the revs to come up, heats the engine up and causes all hell to break loose. Keep in mind that this air doesn't have any oil in it either.
If the leak was on the "wet" side of the engine where the gear that drives the clutch basket lives there would be oil getting drawn into the engine rather than just fresh air. It would run like crap and smoke a lot, but a lot less raw air would get in because of all the oil. A leak on that side is also less likely to occur because of the added lubrication in its environment. The stator side seal only gets is lube from the 2 stroke oil that enters the engine.
I read the other day that it is likely that more two strokes than not are operating with some degree of leakage and may never be damaged because of it, but once you start racing them and running them with near perfect jetting any leak will lead to a rapid failure. The onlt way to be sure if you have a well sealed engine is to seal and pressurize it. Lots of good youtube videos on this.
If you want to see this all first hand start your warm engine and shut the fuel petcock off. After a couple minutes you'll hear the RPM's start to come up as it starts to starve for fuel. How high it will get before it stops is hard to say. I usually hit the kill button before it gets too high. This is not good for an engine!
Something to put in your mental tool box is that you can shut down a runaway 2 stroke by opening the throttle all the way. I've never had to do it, but I have no reason to doubt it works.