This problem did not occur before beta 8!

The steps for me to (80% of the time) reproduce this hang is:

• Start a skirmish game;
• Immediately end the game by hit Escape and selecting the 'Save and exit game' option from the menu;
• Select 'Skirmish' -> 'New Skirmish Game';
• I can change the settings and the 'Game Rules', but the moment i hit the 'Play Game' button the game stops responding to any mouse clicks and stays in this screen.

I can abort the game through the usage of <Alt><F4>. After restarting the game i can play normally.

Furthermore if the game ends normally - either by winning or losing - there is no problem with starting a new skirmish game. Also if i wait a while (i think around at least 10 seconds) before hitting the Escape key the problem does seem to occur less frequently.

Now you might be wondering why i would start a game and almost immediately end it. The answer is simply: i really dislike the 'Magnetic storm'.

PS:

The AIs really seems to have a predilection to use any attacks on the player, quite often well more than half of all attacks in a game are directed at me. I even played several games where all AI attacks targeted me. But maybe it is just that it is a result of my play-style which make me a juicy target.