I also have this problem, playing as Lady Procipinee and Kingdom of New Pariden 2 of my 3 towns are near forests, both normal and old growth, yet no lumberyard option available, even though it was the first item I researched
Have you made sure to turn off Fullscreen option?
I have the same occurring in a current game One of my cities is landlocked with mountains on 3 sides, yet I am still able to build a harbour or fishery
Happens to me all the time also, another fix without zooming to the cloth map is to just click on the build menu & 'presto' all the buildings reappear
Try changing the settings from fullscreen to window at the graphics resolution that your display is running This is a well known issue with the fullscreen option enabled, windowed mode works well for Alt-Tab in and out without crashing
Did you completely uninstall beta 1z and also remove the game from the games folder (or my documents folder if Win XP)?
Essence also determines the Mana level for casting spells
I have had it occur in the same game for trolls, spiders and ebben wolves so far
This is happening regularly to me also
I also had the same crash to desktop when playing the Beta last night (Sunday 11th)