I wasn't the host of the game but when I load one of the save games, I see the 3 players with their names and behind my slot there is the ready and the ping symbol but I can change the slots of all players, except the host. If I start the game now without one of the other players joining, I see the faction from the host and on the top right it shows my name in the color of my own faction but I can't control anything. But it's possible to open the city management for his cities. When I press turn, the AI moves all the units.
The game also crashes, when you load the game in the lobby and try to change one of the other player slots. I can kick myself by changing my slot and the game crashes when I click on my name in the drop down list (same for the third player). This is the error message:

By the way, wouldn't it make more sense to have the "load" button on the game browser windows next to "new" instead of having it after opening a new game?