That's a very interesting suggestion, and I'm surprised I've never put two and two together here. After some searching, I've found that a similar suggestion was made by Shlomo Yehuda Rapoport (Shir) in the journal Kerem Chemed (vol. 7, p. 183).
He suggests that the Romans chased and killed the students of R' Akiva on the suspicion that they were involved in the Bar Kochba revolt, like R' Akiva himself was. He supports this with the description of the students' death in the Iggeres R' Sh'rira Gaon:
והוה שמדא על התלמידים של ר' עקיבא
He posits that "שמדא" was a term used to refer to the Roman persecution.
And even though the Talmud (Yevamos 62b) identifies their death as being though "אסכרה", which means something like "suffocating" or some type of disease, Shir suggests that since the students were forced to flee to the desert, they very well could have died of thirst or hunger or disease. [Incidentally, see this aish.com article n.9: The Talmud says that the students died from the croup which is the English word for askara, a term which denotes choking. The association with Bar Kochba may explain this term, as Bar Kochba's death is described as taking place when a snake (a symbol of his sins) choked him: Jerusalem Talmud Ta'anit 4:5, Midrash Rabbah – Eicha 2:4.]
However, R' Yitzchak Isaac Halevi Rabinowitz in Doros HaRishonim (v.4, ch.31) disputes this idea by refuting the "proof" from R' Sh'rira's letter, and citing the above gemara in it's literal sense (i.e. they died in a plague). Rabinowitz also concludes that the incident with the 24,000 students actually happened before the destruction of the second Temple (by comparing with Talmud Bavli Kesubos 50a), in which case their deaths could of course not have been associated with Bar Kochba at all.