This has been reported to support, I just wanted to pass along a FYI to other users here…
We have had problems with the AI Implant plugin causing Creator to ignore the “Read External References” option in the preferences. So if you load a file with lots of external references, it ignores the preference and takes lots(!) of time to actually load and use the file.
The workaround from Presagis was to delete the AI Implant plugin from your environment (if you don’t actually use it).