Like Ultima VI and Ultima VII, this Ultima follows a single map for the overworld.  You can freely enter houses and buildings without a single load screen.  Even though most caves are on a separate map, such as dungeons, there is still no loading time to get there.  The engine goes as far as loading your last save game when launched to make as much as ZERO load time!  The only other 3D game I can recall that even comes close to this is Infamous for the Playstation 3.  As soon as you launch Infamous, it loads for like 5 seconds or more, and resumes your last save game.  This beats any Grand theft auto game for load times, Grand Theft Auto these days now has loading screens for cutscenes.  Infamous has the occasional load for cutscenes, but most of them pre-loaded using one the cores.  Ultima IX, cutscenes load in seconds, I figure they are streamed from the file to an embedded player.

Regardless, Ultima IX is ahead of it's time in some departments, as most games to date have yet to eliminate load times like the Ultima series did.  Kudos to the Origin developers.