It happened again, this time at turn 19. I won't post the saved game, since it seems to persist even if I restore back to a state where ending a turn worked. I noticed in the debug.err that it seems to get stuck after this: 

Step 2: Thread: Setting AI Event Semaphore

Debug: http://pastebin.com/R1GxN9JN

(note, I cut the part of the debug where it was exiting the game so I could fit it into Pastebin)

 I am using Windows XP SP3, just like the other reported incident https://forums.elementalgame.com/416441  

I got to 19 turns by disabling the auto-save. I'll try starting a game and not changing anything(I tend to fiddle with the cloth map), maybe it'll work. I wouldn't say it's about how much RAM XP can handle, but more about how much I've got. I still hope it will be playable on 1GB. Kinda wish it moved more stuff in the 512MB dedicated video memory(if that's how it works, it probably doesn't)

Last attempt, on a tiny map, dificulty set to the lowest. Managed to get 39 turns in before getting stuck. I thought it may have been RAM related, but before it got stuck there were more than 100MB free, and I've seen it work with as low as 50 free.  I even had explorer disabled so there woudln't be anything non-vital eating up memory.

Debug: http://pastebin.com/rzybtGzP 

This is going to sound strange, but since I started using the Normal density of resources, instead of Lots/Dense/More(I forget what was the highest one), this hasn't happened, even on small maps with 2 opponents (used to happen on tiny with only one). I'm guessing that having a lot of resources makes the AI think about ways it can have the mall, and it gets to a point where it can't decide because of my slow CPU.

I've been unable to reproduce this  took your latest save (and made a new game with dense resources) and was able to play each for over a hundred turns with nothing... let me know if you guys figure out a reliable way to reproduce this and I will get it in our bug list

I was having the same issue and then I disabled "auto turn".  It still takes forever to process a turn on my XP box, but it doesn't hang up as often.

I had a similar case (getting stuck changing turns), on a Core 2 Duo, with auto-turn turned off, but it also happened after I unlocked the Legendary Armor from the quest.  But I have Windows 7 (I have been using my 64-bit Pro version).

I remember disabling auto-turn, even auto-save. I'll get to the bottom of this. I'd hate to think I wasted dev time with a non existent issue, caused by some system fluke.

Right then. So I spent a few hours running different game setups and timing how long it takes to AI to move between turns. At times it went all the way into the 90 second range. That actually happened with normal resources instead of dense, so there goes that theory. I did manage to get it stuck again 28 turns in on a tiny map, with few monsters and one opponent. I'm sure it was stuck, and not just taking a long time... unless it took more than 2 and a half minutes to think about doing things. I cheated and looked at what the AI was doing, he was just standing there, full moves unused. Maybe it's worth noting the AI was on an easier setting, which I think it was in a few other cases where it got stuck.

So, in other words, I found bupkis. Not even the turn times are consistent, there was 55-8-37s at one time. I thought maybe starting the game fresh would decrease the times(exiting before staring new), and it did, on turn 1, but from turn 2 on, times were higher than from game started with CTRL N.

In hindsight, I should have used predefined maps instead of random ones. I stink at bugtracking.