No program should overheat the GPU, ever. The driver should be self-limiting so that the card never gets too hot.
I experienced this with some drivers with an nVidia GEForce 9800 GTX. If it continues to be a problem, using Flip(1) can prevent this, but it's really a problem with the driver, and should not be happening.
If this does occur, you will know it because the screen will go black and a notification will appear in the system tray saying that the display driver crashed.