Re: Heating elements
There is no way that any user of the machine can affect the element to cause it to fail electrically by switching the controls TBH.
The variable temperature control can only ‘reduce’ temperatures, it cannot increase them above the level of any set programme. That is to say if you set the machine to a 40° wash but have the temperature control set to 95° it will only wash a 40°.
There could be any number of reasons, was it a new, genuine element or a pattern spare/second hand one?
If the former then it could just be very bad luck.
A heater can fail if it comes on without water in the machine but that should give you error code warnings etc.
Have you checked the new element for resistance/continuity, it might just be a bad connection to the heater.