So I decided to try again for the heck of it since I got no reply.
I launched the game and went to update, which launches impulse, which wants you to register the game first, blah blah blah.
Looks like I found the problem - Impulse bug/bad design.
If you select the product type(Games) and title(Elemental: War of Magic) in the drop down boxes before entering the serial key, it just won't work.
If you enter the serial key first though, it auto fills these drop down boxes. Then ONLY if you don't touch them and click okay it works!
Please improve your QA. 
