I ran into this as well. Text was missing from the buttons on the opening screen as well as all of the text on the options screen and start new game screen. I first noticed this when I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it on another drive and installed the first beta patch. I tried installing the 1.0X patch thinking that it might help, but it didnt. I ended up uninstalling the game again and (although I am wary of suggesting this) went through the registry removing everything that had galciv2 in it. I then reinstalled the game and the beta patches (did the fiirst one and then 2A came out and I installed that thought StarDock Central) and havent had a problem since.