Try making a new ufoai configuration/preferences directory, i.e. move (mv) ~/.ufoai to another location before starting the game. If that doesn't work, run an 'svn up' followed by 'make clean' and 'make'.
I am on a MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.5.6 and everything works just fine, other than known problems with pathfinding, etc.