Barely works, lame art, goofy story, disappointing gameplay.
Although I've had bad experiences with Stardock titles in the past, I gave them the benefit of the doubt that this game would be something new.
That faith was misplaced.
This game looks extremely bland and boring. The UI is a disaster visually and is hard to use. For example, when you're in a shop... you can't see what items you currently have. Some buttons have no text or description about what they do.
The manual nor the game provide documentation on many features of this "game."
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the game crashes all the time. Click on the wrong unit or farm at the wrong time? Black screen time and you're back to your desktop.
The writing is a joke at best. It's got dialogue that rivals Resident Evil 1 for some of the worst video game writing ever. It's basically a poor copy of Tolkien's LOTR series, almost bordering on an unintentional parody.
Finally, the game play is bewildering. I'm a fan of complex games but the game mechanics and rules in Elemental just don't make any sense. It fails to give you that sense of accomplishment when gain a new tech upgrade or accomplish a quest.
The AI is a joke, I managed to conquer an entire civilization with one spell! I killed their king with a lightning bolt and it was over.
Sum it up: Biggest gaming failure since Stardock's last nopus, Demigod.
Stay far, far away from this and wait for Civ 5.