The "elect" means those who will have been saved according to their works in the end. Their contingent is known to God. It is not known to us, although the Church in her wisdom may look at individual lives and determine that they belong ot th elect, i.e. are saints.
The term itself is not unorthodox, but our Protestant friends apply it to mean that those who made a sincere profession of faith (or perhaps, a sincere profession of faith in a Protestant setting) are those elect, and do not shy away form calling themselves that. It is a fast track to sainthood, unavailable to us.
An old country Orthodox priest is rumored to have answered when asked what is salvation: "you just got a visa to go to America, and you are in a dinghy off the coast of France!"
We do believe that salvation is achieved when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior into our hearts. I don't even mind calling it a fast track because it is scripturally based, and it is so simple. How many times did Jesus forgive a person's sins or confirm true faith based on only one thought, or even one sentence?
We have the centurion in Luke 7. After the expression of one thought by the centurion, we have Luke 7:9 -
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel."
That was it. If Jesus says you have faith, then you have TRUE faith and are saved. It sounds to me that Jesus believed that the centurion was one of the ones given to Him by the Father. Do you agree?
I'm sure there are many examples of this, but one more example is the thief on the cross. His complete salvation was fully attained based on one statement of true faith. It was simple, and I, for one, believe that it was meant to be simple.
P.S. It absolutely is available to you too. :)