I've been in beta since early beta 3, I think, and I'm happy to report that I'm enjoying beta 4 quite a bit more.  At first I didn't see a big improvement in Beta 4, but as I've gotten to know the game better, I've come to appreciate how much progress has been made.  Most importantly, I'm really having fun with the game now.  I now explore more, and I take more time to marvel at the breadth and scope of the gameworld.  Also, at first I was underwhelmed with the graphics, but now I've come to appreciate that they work thematically -- they depict a post-apocalyptic world that is gradually coming back to life.  

Also, I keep reading here that the AI needs work, and I'm sure that's true -- it's true of every strategy game.  But I must suck, because I have yet to beat it on Normal.  And I can beat the GalCiv2 AI on a level or two above Normal.  Partly my failure is a consequence of my ignorance of the game's mechanics.  (Example: "Oooh, so that's why you make parties."  Or:  "Ahhh, now I see how spellcasting works.")  Partly its laziness -- I get sloppy about garrisoning my cities because I'm more interested in constructing some shiny new building.

If I had to point to the single one thing that detracts from my enjoyment, it's the darned crash bug, or memory leak, or whatever it is.  I know the devs will fix it, so I won't belabor the point, except to say that it really does disrupt play, even if you can fire the game back up in less than a minute.

Now for a few constructive suggestions, most of which I suspect aren't new:

1. Could we move with the numpad keys? The arrow keys cover only four directions, but a square grid has 8 directions.  I am an aging gamer, and I'm susceptible to RSI.  Maybe not-so-aged gamers are, too.  After an hour of Elemental, my mouse hand hurts.  I play GalCiv2 and Civ with the numpad almost exclusively.

2. Likewise, a tab-to-next unit option would be great -- maybe it's already in and I just can't find it?  I do use the auto-next-unit feature, which works fine, but sometimes I want that tab.  Essentially, I want to be able to move like I do in GalCiv2 or Civ.

3. If I had my druthers, there'd also be a keyboard way to cycle among cities.

4. I watched Brad's latest videos, and I noticed he was able to get tooltips of buildings in his cities; I have trouble getting those to appear.  Am I mousing wrong?

5. In the tactical battle screen, the mouse doesn't always seem to point to the right square.  It seems to be a bit "south" of its intended target.

6. Are spell resistances part of the game?  E.g., do various units resist different types of spells?  If they do, perhaps the UI could be more explicit about this.

7. A couple of times I've gotten a boost to my "Defense" stat, but I can't see any evidence of that in the sovereign's stat screen.  Perhaps I'm looking at the wrong stat?

8. I am very glad roads are in -- perhaps I just never found them before?!  In beta 3, I often felt like I was walking tediously one square at a time for the entire early game.  In this version, exploring is more fun.  My only suggestion here would be a slightly greater variety of terrain types and terrain effects.  Again, I didn't realize until I watched Brad's video that trees, for example, offer more defensive protection.  Maybe there can be more terrain effects like this -- e.g., quicksand or other terrain that offers poor defensive protection.

9. I'm still sorting out what I think about "goodie huts."  I always enjoy them in Civ, but they may be a tad too generous here -- 100 gildar seems like a lot to find in the early game.  On the other hand, they give the player another reason to explore, and I would think you'd want to make exploration as fun as possible.  So I suppose I lean toward "yes, but tone them down."

10. I know it's too late for this before release, but perhaps post-release you might consider D&D style Alignments, or Bioware-style character-decision-making?  (Or maybe this sort of thing is already in and I've missed it?)

That's all I can think of for now.  For me, honestly, by far the biggest priorities are the crash bug and the keyboard shortcuts.  If those are dealt with, everything else can come later, as far as I'm concerned.  

Finally, a word of thanks to Brad and the team for producing such an interesting and engrossing game.  You guys rock!