Sure it was improved with the V1.11 patch, but it still has a long way to go.
Elemental is a 4x game which stands for "explore, expand, exploit and exterminate." The funny thing about it is, the exterminate part is the only part of the game that is viable. Once you get magic equipment, you start to steamroll through every single monster and npc that you can see. Teching up and talking to other nations isn't nearly as fun as say the Civ series. Why even bother when you have a much, much easier way to win the game.
When you start the game up you have to make a sovereign. This is essentialy you in the game world. The character customization is ok, you can only choose from genders, a few hair styles, a couple of faces, races, and clothing. There is nothing that special about it. What I didn't like about it is the fact that you have to pick from the most basic equipment like clubs. When you tech up military, you first get equipment unlocked that looked simple enough that they should have just put in the original character customization. You then have to choose to be the leader of a certain nation or race. The problem here is that there no differences between the various races. They all end up being bland and same by the end.
When you enter the game, you are dropped in a fairly generic fantasy world. It wouldn't have been so bad if the enviroments weren't so bland and the same EVERY SINGLE GAME. There are the same quests, same champions, same landscape, same everything! This even goes back to the races where they all end up being the exact same. This is why Elemental is hard to play after the first game. You keep feeling like you're seeing the exact same things and doing the same things.
The bugs have been heavily reduces and the performance is better with the patches. It is easier to understand what to do in the game for newcomers. The UI got better but it is still very clunky and should be changed in the near future. I found the graphics to be very nice, I really liked the artstyle that the game went for here. The music was nice, but once again they need something different instead of the same track in a loop over and over and over.
Overall, just wait for more patches or even an expansion. This game clearly wasn't ready in release and it still isn't now. It's too boring to go through the exact same things over and over.