Hi!
No worries about getting the game for free! I might even set the base price to zero at some point, once I figure out a way to monetize it some other way (DLC mostly) without adding ads or usual F2P micropayments.
Anyway, I’ve (finally) released version 1.2.2 which should be performing way better; I hope you can test it at some point and have a better experience :)
As for the game status, I don’t really know either x) I still have a lot of features and content (at least 3 more islands) I want to add so it’s definitely not final stage, but I think it’s also far from a alpha version. I guess a vague “early access” fits, somehow?