I realize this is the support forum, and you're looking for problems right away, but this being my first post and all, I really feel that first I should thank you guys at Stardock for all your hard work. It has resulted in a great game that I'm sure I'll be playing for a long, long time.

Bear with me here. I read the sticky, but I can't promise I'll remember to post everything you're looking for. If I forget something and it takes longer to solve my problem, I'm perfectly fine with that.

My first issue is with the game crashing. It's crashed on me about 4 times now, and I believe two out of the four happened during or directly after tactical battles. I believe this is significant because I don't spend nearly as much time in tactical battles as I do dragging around the map or reading the tooltips and entries about technologies, etc. The crash that happened just before I logged on to post this was during a tactical battle that did not take place in a city. An enemy sovereign had just cast Hurricane on me. The animation started fine, but hung in the middle (I assume where more particles start to render), froze, went to a completely black screen after a few seconds that showed just the feather cursor, and then crashed.

As a side note, I've noticed that this game takes quite a long time to start up, and my system experiences massive slowdown for about 60-90 seconds after I exit the game. Considering that I play quite a few games on this machine that are more graphics-intensive than Elemental (Just Cause 2, NBA 2K10, Starcraft 2) and experience quick startup times and no slowdown after exit, there seems to be something out of place.

I'll get to the bug I noticed after I post my tech specs:

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit)

Processor: AMD Phenom 9750 Quad-Core (2.40GHz)

Graphics Card: PNY GeForce 9800 GTX+

RAM: 3GB

Hard Drive: 48.8GB free space

I play the game at 1440 x 900 resolution, and I've selected most of the video options that seemed appropriate for running the game on a higher-end system.

Okay, on to the bug. I created a party (4) of troops called knights that wield longswords. After a few levels and some warfare research that added 10% to attack, the group-unit's attack was up to about 75. During a tactical battle with a Troll Raid, the Shaman-looking troll (the one wearing a skull for a helmet, with the higher attack / lower hp, and so on) cast multiple applications of confuse on my knights. I was surprised to select them on my turn and find that their attack had dropped to -70 or -90 something (was way too worried about losing my unit, to be honest, so I can't remember clearly). So I decided to let that unit pass turn until the confusion wore off, and move other units ahead to fight instead. A few more turns pass, and the shaman-troll casts confusion on my knights again, but this time applies it about 2-3 times. Their attack is now in the -1000 range. Another turn passes, and I'm hoping this wears off. Next enemy turn, another application of confusion, but this time one application wears off as the next is applied. Apparently some numbers get jumbled, and my knights now have 382 attack. I slaughter me some troll raiders. Then I head back to my city to heal up, and the next turn their attack is reduced, but not all the way. They now have a permanent 95 attack, with no warfare research done between the time of the battle and the drop in attack from 382 to 95. Kinda cool, but I thought confusion was only supposed to halve the damage done by the affected unit, not reduce their attack to a negative level. Anyway, I wanted to let you guys know, because this looks like a bug that could potentially be exploited to oblivion if someone figures out how to gain the attack advantage every time.

Thanks again, guys, and I'll check back here frequently to see if the crashing issue has been solved. If additional information is needed, I'll get it for you as soon as possible.