sorry.. I meant I created the elgg database, not the "table" (it was late) and then I created a user with privileges.  The only difference I see on my configuration is that I'm connecting to a remote google cloud instance for my database, not localhost, but I've verified that I can connect successfully from my elgg instance.  I'll take a look at the video just to make sure I'm doing things correctly.. 

I create the table within my within MySql using CREATE DATABASE elgg;

Ok.. so here is information that I believe would be relevant.  I had this same error message appear when I tried to install version 3.1.1 almost 2 months ago.  I never resolved and had to revert to version 2.3.14.  When I followed the instructions on that version, it was a seamless, error-free install.  I wanted to try the latest version because I saw a thread on github: https://github.com/Elgg/Elgg/issues/12809 so it seemed this actually was an issue that was resolved.  But, for some reason that I still can't figure out, it still shows that same error for me.