As JimDiGriz says, it is mostly flat. There are a few hilly areas, and I have seen signs about using chains, but 80 is a major highway. A lot of effort goes in to keeping it passable. It's definitely possible to have snow issues on the drive, but seems uncommon. That DOT website is great and has helped my peace of mind on a few winter trips.
I've only ever had one issue flying in or out of Elko, a delay that caused me to miss my connection in SLC. I was able to get on a later flight and arrive home about 8 hours later than planned, not too bad all in all. As others have said, though, if that one flight out of Elko is cancelled there isn't much you can do, unless your connecting flight is late enough that you can get to SLC by ground and still catch it.