I had similar symptoms as atvken.
The traction control relay (one of the 5 relays in the RCM) in my Crossfire went bad and it caused all sorts of problems in addition to not cranking. The blacked out autostick selector indicates that you are in limp mode and limited to 2nd gear. When I was first experiencing issues and before it would no longer crank after temporarily disconnecting the negative battery cable, I was noticing similar transmission slippage issues, not to mention having to use a ball point pen to release the gear selector to shift out of park.