This is true, except when a cardinal invariant of of the von Neumann algebra (the maximum cardinality of a decomposition of the identity into orthogonal projections) is not a real-valued measurable cardinal.
[As requested by the asker, I edited this answer to include more background information on the topologies I mention.]
More generally, it is pretty likely that sequential $\sigma$-strong$^*$ continuity doesn't imply $\sigma$-strong$^*$ continuity. I didn't verify that the details carry over to the $\sigma$-strong$^*$ topology, but Matthias Neufang has shown that sequential $\sigma$-weak continuity is equivalent to $\sigma$-weak continuity if and only if the decomposability number of $\mathcal{M}$ is not a real-valued measurable cardinal, with $\ell^\infty(\kappa)$ for a real-valued measurable cardinal $\kappa$ being a counterexample. The arguments should generalize to the $\sigma$-strong$^*$ topology, because they reduce to the commutative case, and then reduce to a direct sum of finite measure spaces, which give countably decomposable von Neumann algebras.
By a result of AkemannIt turns out that same counterexample works here. First, some preliminaries on various topologies on $\ell^\infty(I)$. This has some overlap with the $\sigma$-stronglast question I answered. The Mackey topology is the finest vector topology on $\ell^\infty(I)$ such that the continuous linear functionals are $\ell^1(I)$, and it is given by convergence on the absolutely convex weakly compact subsets of $\ell^1(I)$. The bounded weak$^*$ topology (or the equicontinuous weak$^*$ topology in the duals of non-normed spaces) is the finest vector topology that agrees with the Mackeyweak$^*$ topology on bounded sets, and it is given by convergence on the absolutely convex norm compact sets of $\ell^1(I)$. The Grothendieck compactness criterion forIts continuous linear functionals are also $\ell^1(I)$. Since $\ell^1(I)$ has the Schur property, these topologies coincide on $\ell^1(I)$.
By a theorem of Akemann, the strong$^*$ and Mackey topologytopologies agree on bounded sets, so the dualstrong$^*$ topology agrees with the weak$^*$ topology on bounded subsets of a Banach space$\ell^\infty(I)$, and it is easy to see that a set $E \subseteq \mathcal{M}$this is precompact ifjust pointwise convergence.
Let $\kappa$ be a real-valued measurable cardinal, and only if
$$\lim_{n \to \infty} \sup_{x \in E} |\varphi_n(x)| = 0$$
for all weakly null sequences $(\varphi_n)$ in$\mu$ a $\mathcal{M}_*$. It might$\kappa$-additive probability measure on $\mathcal{P}(\kappa)$ that vanishes on all singletons, which can be possibleviewed as a bounded linear functional on $\ell^\infty(\kappa)$ via integration. We want to useshow that $\kappa$ is continuous with respect to the decompositiontopology of pointwise convergence on bounded subsets of $\mathcal{M}^*$ into normal and singular parts$\ell^\infty(\kappa)$. Since $|\mathbb{R}| \leq \kappa$, pointwise convergence of bounded complex-valued functions on $\kappa$ can be described by nets on directed sets of size at most $\kappa$. Let $(f_\lambda)_{\lambda \in \Lambda}$ be a bounded net such that $(f_\lambda) \to f$ and $|\Lambda| \leq \kappa$. Then by the weak sequential completeness$\kappa$-additivity of $\mathcal{M}_*$$\mu$ we have
$$\int f \, d\mu = \lim_{\lambda \in \Lambda} \int f_\lambda \, d\mu.$$
Therefore, $\mu$ is continuous with respect to answer your question forthe topology of bounded pointwise convergence, and continuous on all von Neumann algebrasstrong$^*$-compact subsets of $\ell^\infty(\kappa)$. Since $\mu$ vanishes on singletons it can't have countable support, and thus can't be in $\ell^1(\kappa)$.