It has recently been brought to our attention that the latest NVidia drivers include a regression that leads to having your vision blocked during the very first and last moments of Consortium. We have contacted our rep at NVidia and are working on a fix for this problem. In the meantime, many users (including our staff) have found that the problem is limited, somewhat variably from system to system, to either fullscreen or windowed mode only. If you are experiencing the issue, we suggest you try toggling the fullscreen setting and seeing if that clears things up for you.
UPDATE: Further troubleshooting indicates that the variation between systems may be related to screen resolution. Certain combinations of resolution and fullscreen mode would seem to trigger the issue. If the problem persists in both modes, try changing resolution by one or two positions and trying again. We will update again if further details are found.
Alternative Workaround
If you find that the problem is present in both fullscreen and windowed modes, the following save files can be used to skip past the opening sequence:
Save for Steam & Humble versions: http://1drv.ms/1zuStyf
Special save for GOG version (saves are incompatible with other two): http://1drv.ms/1H9E0uX
Usage: place this in consortium/SAVE/[your Steam account #] inside the game's installation directory. For non-Steam versions, the save file will just be directly inside the SAVE folder.
This save file is configured to appear under Universe 1. If you'd like to a use a different universe, just change the first number of the filename before inserting.
As for the ending sequence, the following steps can be used to end the game: When the Churchill Tower comes into view, release your mouse. When you find yourself blinded, tap left a couple quick times and then hold forward to move to the end, you should navigate to the end trigger.
We apologize for the inconvenience.