It does Load again. I verified this by Profiler and it shown two queries. Default merge option is MergeOption.AppendOnly and it doesn't prevent from querying again. Code from Reflector:
public override void Load(MergeOption mergeOption)
{
base.CheckOwnerNull();
ObjectQuery<TEntity> query = base.ValidateLoad<TEntity>(mergeOption, "EntityReference");
base._suppressEvents = true;
try
{
List<TEntity> collection = new List<TEntity>(RelatedEnd.GetResults<TEntity>(query));
if (collection.Count > 1)
{
throw EntityUtil.MoreThanExpectedRelatedEntitiesFound();
}
if (collection.Count == 0)
{
if (base.ToEndMember.RelationshipMultiplicity == RelationshipMultiplicity.One)
{
throw EntityUtil.LessThanExpectedRelatedEntitiesFound();
}
if ((mergeOption == MergeOption.OverwriteChanges) || (mergeOption == MergeOption.PreserveChanges))
{
EntityKey entityKey = ObjectStateManager.FindKeyOnEntityWithRelationships(base.Owner);
EntityUtil.CheckEntityKeyNull(entityKey);
ObjectStateManager.RemoveRelationships(base.ObjectContext, mergeOption, (AssociationSet) base.RelationshipSet, entityKey, (AssociationEndMember) base.FromEndProperty);
}
base._isLoaded = true;
}
else
{
base.Merge<TEntity>(collection, mergeOption, true);
}
}
finally
{
base._suppressEvents = false;
}
this.OnAssociationChanged(CollectionChangeAction.Refresh, null);
}