13 True Ways and Eidolons introduced the new types Elemental and Spirit. Sometimes the distinction between these and other types may be ambiguous. I will try my best to sort that out here. Later I should write a primer on spirits and related things.
Spirits are the souls and personifications of natural forces, abstract concepts and emotions. They may overlap with spectral undead, in which case the GM could decide that spectral undead automatically qualify as both undead/spirit types.
Elementals are seething masses of base matter animated by demons, spirits, undead or similar entities. Constructs and elementals are similar because their bodies are composed of base matter and both have animating spirits bound into them. Some sourcebooks have included spontaneously animating constructs. The distinction is that the two are tied to opposing magical winds: constructs to artifice, elementals to nature.
Constructs and undead are pretty similar, being animated masses of something which isn't alive but might have been in the past. The difference between them is that they are tied to difference magical winds: constructs are tied to artifice, undead to death.
Not everything made of something other than flesh is an elemental, however. It is entirely possible for beasts and humanoids to have alien physiology based on fire or crystals or whatever. The reason why they aren't constructs or elementals is because they have a living metabolism: they eat and reproduce just like other living creatures.
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