diff --git a/spacy/vocab.pyx b/spacy/vocab.pyx
index 6f711260b..a3d6b999b 100644
--- a/spacy/vocab.pyx
+++ b/spacy/vocab.pyx
@@ -47,7 +47,10 @@ cdef class Vocab:
 
         tag_map = json.load(open(path.join(data_dir, 'tag_map.json')))
         lemmatizer = Lemmatizer.from_dir(path.join(data_dir, '..'))
-        serializer_freqs = json.load(open(path.join(data_dir, 'serializer.json')))
+        if path.exists(path.join(data_dir, 'serializer.json')):
+            serializer_freqs = json.load(open(path.join(data_dir, 'serializer.json')))
+        else:
+            serialize_feqs=None
         cdef Vocab self = cls(get_lex_attr=get_lex_attr, vectors=vectors, tag_map=tag_map,
                               lemmatizer=lemmatizer, serializer_freqs=serializer_freqs)