Does it take energy to create an electric field? A charged particle (like an electron), creates an electric field surrounding it. But where does the energy to create the electric field come from? Does it come from the electron?
It seems that it must take energy to create the electric field since the electric field is an excited state of the electromagnetic field... The electric field is really just virtual photons
 A: In QFT, this energy, which is associated with Coulomb field, works out to a correction to the electron rest mass. 
The question of where the energy comes from is the same question as "where did the energy to make the electron come from?" I.E. If you want to make an electron, you need to make its electric field as well. 
A: 
A charged particle (like an electron), creates an electric field surrounding it.

Creating something presupposes that it was not existing befor the creation. For a free electron this is not the case. The electric field of the electron is an intrinsic - existing independent from external circumstances - property of the electron.

But where does the energy to create the electric field come from? Does it come from the electron?

As said above, there isn’t any creation. A more usefulness question would be, to ask, could one extracted energy from this field.
An electron, in an excited state in some distance from a nucleus emits energy when falling back to the initial state. The emitted energy has to come from the mass or from the field. It is a consensus since over 100 years that the field is unchanging under any circumstance (intrinsic), even in bonded states in the atom. Following this view, one could not extract energy from the electric field of an electron.

It seems that it must take energy to create the electric field since the electric field is an excited state of the electromagnetic field... The electric field is really just virtual photons

You can produce electrons with there electric field (if you want, you can use the word create in this case) from a neutral subatomic particle. The neutron decay produces an electron, a proton - both with electric fields - and an electron-antineutrino.
Some words about the mentioned by you virtual photons. The electric field is considered as something without inner structure. Only for the description of interactions between the fields from two charged particles virtual photons are used.
