How can I pull in the most recent blog posts to a section with Elementor Page Builder?

is the home page template from the theme or built using Elementor?

If its the themes own home page template and you are adding the Elementor Template shortcode to the php file, then the resources it needs may not be getting loaded.

Those Elementor template shortcodes work best when they are inserted into a page build using Elementor.

if you are adding them within a page designed using Elementor, are you using the Elementor Shortcode widget or trying to add them to say a Text Editor or Header widget?