The screen did not go white.  Somehow one unit got stuck selected or something and I couldn't get any commands to register.  It's also pretty odd that hitting escape doesn't bring up a menu if you're in a tactical battle (albeit that's a design issue and not a bug as far as I can tell).

The bigger issue is that I get nothing but a black screen on starting the game now though.  It started fine the first time but now it doesn't.

1.) Your drivers could use some updating.  Always make sure you have the latest and greatest for your card for best performance.

2.) Is this as soon as the game is run, or when you load a save?  If the former, try deleting the following directory: C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic\Screens (the directory ProgramData is hidden)  and running the game again

It's when the game is run.  Tried to deleting that folder, no cookie.

Older drivers were due to a compatibility issue with another game, they also didn't seem to be a problem through most of the beta.  I will update them later though.

I'm having a similar issue to this. 

What I did find out is that repeatedly running elemental will eventually get it to start.  And once it does start it works perfectly fine - if the splash screen with the dragon shows, the game will run for several hrs with no issues, and haven't gotten any crashes. 

Deleting the folder seemed to work once for me, but as with songriever deleting it a second time and trying again went back to the black screen.

edit: for what its worth, according to the taskmanager, elemental will start using about 135 mb of memory, and then just stop doing anything.

Songreiver, some users have reported this being caused by ATI traytools, and closing it allows the game to run. So if you're using it, give that a shot.

I have exactly the same issue, screen black on starting since the update this morning.

Basically:

New Launcher starts fine

Game starts

Game cursor appears (feather/scribe)

But black screen

Music plays and seems to react to esc but still black

Delete screen folder and still black

So far, I've had 100% success rate on running elemental if its the first thing I run after doing a reboot. (still messing up later on, though)

Hoping the day0 patch fixes this entirely, but if not hopefully the reboot trick still works, and helps others as well.

Same here, had it weirdly getting through once one.

Did turn off intro. Went out of the game, re-started and again black screen (though music now playing from start) so doesn't seem to be linked to the intro.

Had it now running with black screen for 15min, no change (though music seems to change/progress)

btw, not sure I want to play the game if it means I have to play it in admin-mode and while having my firewall turned off; somehow doesn't sound that great