Somewhere in the last two beta patches, something happened that's totally broken the game.
This happens regardless of settings, seed, etc. If I simply hit "OK", it sends me back to the lobby, but the planets are set to be controlled by the AI, and it won't let me start (says it needs 2 available planets for the AI).
This happens on both my laptop and desktop, so I really don't know what's going on. Both ran fine - and still work without the beta patches (i.e. when I do a steam game cache check).
I have no idea what the error means or how to fix it, but the game is unplayable.