It's possible old data from previous patches are gumming up the works.  Try going here:

XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic
Vista/7: C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic

Delete everything in that folder except the sig.bin file and see if that helps.

Please open your debug.err file in notepad, and link the contents into a post here via pastebin. This will give us some technical information that can help troubleshoot your problem.

The file can be found in My Documents\My Games\Elemental

Be sure to copy the debug immediately after the error occurs; if you start the game again, the debug log will be erased and recreated for the new session.

Hi there

I had the same issue until yesterday, when I noticed this thread.

I tried Rosco_P's advice and it didn't solve anything. Lurking around I found many other threads that said that another way to solve was to delete the contents of the Screens subfolder in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic

It was then that I noticed that the Screens folder was completely empty.

In the end I resolved doing the following:

1) Start Elemental, and removed the Fullscreen option

2) Completely deleted the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic folder (it didn't contain any sig.bin file either so I just thought "meh, whatever" )

3) Restart Elemental, now the Screens folder is correctly populated by its files and the text doesn't overlap anymore

Please note that if I try the same in fullscreen, the Screens folder is not regenerated - it stays empty. I didn't try to let it create the files and THEN switch to fullscreen again. For now I am playing windowed and it's fine.

Hope it helps