At the time of this question, there is no way to sort on the formatting of cells in google spreadsheets. You can only sort on values.
The really great thing about coloring in cells is that it makes finding things easier with the eye.
Conditional formatting can automatically color a cell based on it's contents.
A solution is to create a status column with data validation that displays options in a drop-down from a list on another sheet. The column can have conditional formatting based on the selection.
You can easily sort your data on this column's values.
Conditional formatting (at this time) can only be driven by the value of the cell it's applied to. So only the cells in the column will change, not the entire row.
