Jim did a very elegant matrix reformulation of your problem. To help you understand what he did you could have fixed your formula as follows:
Eldp[k_, l_, d_, kd_, ld_, dd_] :=
Sqrt[kd (Derivative[1, 0, 0][El][k, l, d])^2 +
ld (Derivative[0, 1, 0][El][k, l, d])^2 +
dd (Derivative[0, 0, 1][El][k, l, d])^2]
Note that El is a pure function -- you gave it no arguments. Also, your partial derivatives were specified wrong -- the Derivative[0,1,0] means derivative with respect to the second variable -- yours were all wrt the first variable. Jim created a vector of the partial derivatives in one shot by doing
D[El[vk, vl, vd], {{vk, vl, vd}}])
you could do each one individually by doing this
D[El[vk, vl, vd], vk])
he used temporary variables (vk,vl,vd) so values would not be substituted, getting your derivatives as expressions of vk,vl, and vd but then assigned the values with the rules
/. vk->k
etc.
he then created a diagonal matrix of your three coefficients kd,ld,dd, and took a dot product.
Hope this helps.