OS X 10.11 GM Candidate 1 left my Mac unable to boot I tried to install the OS X 10.11 GM to my 2012 Macbook Air, and it crashed during the install.  I tried to go into recovery mode to reinstall OS X, but once I put in my Wifi password and press the install button it crashes and reboots.

Is there some way to reinstall OS X short of taking it to an Apple Store?  The nearest store is about a 3 hour drive away, so if I can do this from home I'd prefer that.

The Macbook Air of course doesn't have a disc drive, but I know in the past with Lion you could get a USB stick from Apple to upgrade the OS.  I'm wondering if I could either get a USB from Apple or make my own?

As a last resort is it possible to ship my Macbook to Apple to be repaired?
You do have a recent backup? If not this procedure will be substantially different.

Backed Up? Use Recovery Mode

If you boot into recovery mode using  Command+R at startup can you proceed with an internet recovery by installing over top of the hosed OS already on the drive?

If that works I would try that first. It should leave your files and apps alone for the most part. If it fails then you may have to reformat the Mac OS partition and install clean using Internet recovery.

No Back Up? Use Target Disk Mode

If you do not have a backup you may have to put your system into target disk mode by holding T at startup and hooking it up to another Mac with a Thunderbolt cable to back up your files.