You are starting with a bounced stereo mix, right? 24-bit? I.e., just doing the mastering as a separate step?
Check your master fader or any automation to make sure there's not something going on after the Maximizer (which is a limiter). And if the Elements version has it, set the upper limit to -1.0 with True Peak turned on.
Bouncing to non-lossy format should pretty well match that peak when measured independently. (I use Orban's free meter myself.) Any time I've seen weirdness in the peaks it's been because I somehow nudged an arrow key or something when I had some master out automation highlighted.
In the full Ozone (I'm back on 8), there's several options in the Maximizer about the type of limiting to apply - you can tinker with those, and also make sure to set Dithering in Ozone and not re-dither in the bounce, if that's also an option and you're bouncing out to 16-bit. At least, that's my workflow.
I also agree if there's uncontrollable peaks, you probably need some compression somewhere ahead of the master limiting.
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