Surface Pro 1 - System can't install the grub loader and provides no option to examine the file system nor offers a remedy. Just stops.

[Charles Russell]

Installation proceeds as expected, prior to the grub installaiton.
Simply states that it cannot install the loader and that the system will not be able to boot without it. (Of course)
It doesn't offer any steps to possibly resolve or diagnose the issue. It simply requests to submit a bug, then falls on it's face and exits.
This is independent of the linux version, USB formatting. I've tried many with the same results. Perhaps it's protected partition of sorts.

Based on experience, the system will now boot to grub only and the manual commands to boot it will result in a stop at (initramfs)

I hope this helps, and of course any advice is welcome. I'm sure that I'm not the only person who has had to contend with this.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: ubiquity 18.04.14.12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-15.16~18.04.1-generic 4.18.20
Uname: Linux 4.18.0-15-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.5
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.394
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Sep 18 14:55:25 2019
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20190210)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 LC_NUMERIC=C.UTF-8
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)