When I attempted to load the 4th time it worked.

This is definitely a repeatable crash.. total system crash too.. well i shouldn't say that as much as the mouse is still operable. the music still plays but everything isnt responsive.. i can alt-ctrl-del and make out the resize cursor of my invisible task manager on top of the elemental screen but nothing will break it out except a reboot..

I have the a similar issue which was talked about on another thread that frogboy called a timing issue most likely with multi-core systems. 

The workaround is to open the game then go to the load game menu but wait 30 or so seconds to actually load the save game. 

Here is the link to the thread if it helps:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/386068