I faced the same issue. Scrolling down, I found the following error in the logs:
java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: com/android/dx/command/Main :
Unsupported major.minor version 52.0
Then I searched for the above error and found the following work-around as suggested by the solutions to this question and another similar question:
In the file build.gradle(Module:app) I changed the following from:
buildToolsVersion "24.0.0"
to
buildToolsVersion "23.0.2"
and clicked the button to "sync project with gradle files" in Android Studio and the error vanished.
Note: I didn't understand the exact reason for the error and it's solution completely but it seems to be a compatibility issue of java version 1.7 and Android API level 24. Some people suggested (on the questions' links I mentioned) to use JDK version 8 with API 24, or downgrade it to JDK version 7 and API level 23.0.x as a work around.
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