Happened to me once too -- I think it was after I selected the game to load.  Anyway the menu disappeared and the background just kept cycling.  Blew it away to try again and it worked.

First time I tried to load an autosave (from my current game, as I'd made a mistake), the game crashed. I restarted the game and got the same bug as the OP. So I quit the game, restarted it, and loaded the autosave again, and it worked. Annoying though.

It's really frustrating having to look for free 3rd party hosting that requires users to register and waste time. A simple file attachment feature in the forums would be far more efficient / helpful.

With that said here is the debug: http://www.youshare.com/Guest/d2ec9bc995f23641.err.html

And here is a save file: http://www.youshare.com/Guest/3c765458e863e280.EleSav.html

debug.err     http://pastebin.ca/1903144\           (at least pastebin doesn't make you register, and .ca works, unlike .com last time I tried)

save game     http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8928343/AutoSave.EleSav

Tried to load, it gave the "creating world" message normally, but when the message went away the background started scrolling when it normally freezes.

This is AT LEAST the 4th time I have had this problem.  The others have all loaded when I tried again.  In the past it has seemed to depend on timing (click load after the city appears when he background stops scrolling), and how long since I rebooted.  But this is the 2nd time with this save-game, and this time I rebooted, waited quite a while before running the game, I timed it as close to perfectly as I can.

.... trying to research the "enable reliable load" spell....

same like 1/5 times i try it works

or turn off the intro

harpo

When this happens to me I press escape a few times until the options menu comes up. Then I hit "back to game" and I am able to play. Almost always works for me.

Yeah I never get this either. I just get a continuously scrolling background...