In my game (patch 1.44), the Earth Elemental is hostile towards the garygoles. (Found out quite by accident). Hence, you can release one or two garygoles before releasing the Elemental, and let the two of them kill each other off, leaving one party servely weaken. In my case, one garygole managed to remove 75% of the Earth Elemental's heatlh! A quick whack and a health potion later and the elemental is dead.
