By any chance do you drive a standard? Elements, especially those that are sticks, tend to suffer from the exhaust valves going out of spec much sooner than normal. In my experience (the three times this has happened within 130K) is that I would drive semi-aggressively from a cold start. When I came to a stop in the first 5 minutes of driving, the RPM gauge would drop too low and stall. Turning the car back on would keep me moving again for usually the rest of the drive. You can literally say to the mechanic, "my exhaust valves are out of spec" and they can fix it from there. It's cost me between 150-300 depending on the mechanic doing the work.